US Health Workers, Stuck In Snow, Vaccinate Stranded Drivers Just In Time Before Vials Expired
Unlike many who have to drive miles to get a Covid-19 vaccine, some travelers in southwestern Oregon had the vaccine come to them on Tuesday under treacherous weather conditions.
Oregon health workers who got stuck in a snowstorm on their way back from a COVID-19 vaccination event went car to car injecting stranded drivers before several of the doses expired. Josephine County Public Health said on Facebook that the “impromptu vaccine clinic” took place after about 20 employees got stranded in a snowstorm at Hayes Hill.
Though the vaccines were meant or other people, the health department in the Facebook post said, “The snow meant those doses wouldn’t make it to them before they expired”.
Six of the vaccines were getting close to expiring so the workers decided to offer them to other stranded drivers.
To keep those doses from going unused before expiring, the workers went from car to car to offer people the chance to get a shot, the health department said. An ambulance was waiting nearby in case any recipients had an adverse reaction.
All six doses were administered to the waylaid motorists, including a sheriff’s office employee who had intended to be at the earlier mass vaccination event but got stuck in the snow, the health department said.
Oregon received over 1,00,000 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines in the last week, according to the state’s coronavirus hub. The state is still in Phase 1 of its vaccine rollout, and health care workers and teachers have been among the first to get it.
