‘WHO CAN GET PEOPLE HERE?’

Docs Vaccinated People on Seattle Sidewalk in Mad Dash to Use 1,600 Expiring Doses

“People were showing up and running down the hall,” Kevin Brooks, the COO of Swedish Health Services said.

Medical professionals in Seattle have described insane scenes as they scrambled to give out 1,600 coronavirus vaccine doses that were at risk of going to waste after a freezer broke down late Thursday evening. “We were literally like … who can get people here?” Kevin Brooks, the COO of Swedish Health Services told The Washington Post. “People started texting and calling and we were just counting down.” Well-past 3 a.m. they still had dozens of vaccines that needed to be used. With minutes to go before the doses were set to expire, staff ran out onto the streets to find people and offer them vaccines; an old woman in flip-flops got hers on the sidewalk and some people received theirs through their car windows.

Earlier this week, Oregon health-care workers who were stranded in a snowstorm vaccinated nearby drivers in order to salvage soon-to-expire vaccine doses. “When I got the call they’re like, ‘it’s kind of like our snow moment,’” Jennifer Brackett, a hospital administrator at UW Medicine in Seattle said.