California wasted 31,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Here’s how we ranked among other states
California has wasted more than 31,000 doses of the vaccine since December, just a fraction of the more than 39 million doses delivered to residents of the country’s most populous state since the vaccine rollout began.
When COVID-19 vaccines first became available and local health departments were crushed by an onslaught of demand, state officials and health experts stressed the importance ensuring not a single dose went to waste.
Given the scale of the vaccine rollout, the wasted dose data spanning from December 10 through May 10, indicate that local health departments were generally able to avoid tossing out shots or otherwise disposing the precious resource. The data was obtained from the California Department of Public Health through a Public Records Act request.
“In the first several months of the vaccine rollout, we did succeed in getting out every single dose into somebody’s arm that we were allocated, even though we weren’t exactly set up for success,” said Sacramento County’s epidemiology program manager Jamie White last month.
Some of the challenges included complicated and restrictive vaccine eligibility based on employment. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office later clarified in January that county health officials could consider giving doses to lower priority people if it meant avoiding wasting doses from an already open vial.
In Sacramento, 321 of the more than 1.5 million shots the county received were wasted, according to state data. The most common reason being health professionals were unable to draw an extra dose from the vial for the Pfizer vaccine. Yolo, Placer and El Dorado counties wasted 56, 170, and eight doses, respectively.
The number of wasted doses in California reflects the “cost of doing business,” said Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist and associate professor of population health at UC Irvine.
“It’s kind of inevitable that you’re not going to use every dose,” he said. “You’re never going to have zero wastage, it’s baked in the cake.”
The state data does not include vaccines given out by pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens, which have been receiving doses directly from the federal government.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed those two companies were responsible for roughly 70% of the nearly 183,000 wasted vaccine doses nationwide as of late March, Kaiser Health News reported last month.
Alameda County wasted the largest number of doses in the state, unable to use 7,055 of the more than 1.8 million shots it received. More than half were wasted because Pfizer vaccines were spoiled. Tulare and Modoc counties were the only two that had a wastage rate of more than half a percent, wasting 2,380 and 41 doses, respectively.
Nine counties — Alpine, Calaveras, Colusa, Inyo, Lake, Mariposa, Mono, Sierra and Tehama — reported to the state that it had wasted no doses.
Vaccine waste has varied from state to state. In Texas, roughly 60,000 doses have gone to waste, the Houston Chronicle reported in mid-May. Louisiana has wasted more than 12,000 doses, despite a state population that’s one-eighth the size of California.
Some states have reported minimal wastage, according to Kaiser Health News. Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and D.C. together registered just 1,090 wasted doses by mid-March, the news outlet reported.
There are a variety of reasons why a vaccine may have gone unused. A syringe may have broken, a dose may have been lost, a vial may have been opened but not fully used up, or vials may have expired. About 70% of the wasted doses were Pfizer vaccines.
“If you had asked me December 10 if I was worried about wastage numbers, yeah, this was a concern,” Noymer said. “But fast forward to June 1, epidemiologically speaking, this is not keeping me up at night.”
What is troubling, however, is the sagging demand for vaccines. He said he’s “pleasantly surprised” by the current vaccination rate (about 70% of adults in California have now been at least partially vaccinated) but added that state and local health departments must do more to ensure low-income residents and Latinos are getting vaccinated.
“The reason we’re administering fewer doses per day isn’t because of wasted doses and we’re being profligate,” Noymer said. “The reason is we’ve run into a wall of skepticism.”
This story was originally published June 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "California wasted 31,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Here’s how we ranked among other states."