According to a new report, thousands of people who received their Covid-19 vaccines at a mass vaccination site were given the wrong dosage.
People at the vaccination site at Oakland Coliseum in California received too little of the Pfizer doses.
One medic estimated that about 4,300 people had received their shots before the mistake was discovered.
Up to 6,000 people can be vaccinated at the site on weekdays.
KTVU reported that two unnamed medical workers at the site claimed the doses were administered incorrectly.
The correct amount to administer is 0.3 mL, but medics said that the syringes they received from a national stockpile left about a third of the vaccine stuck in the bottom of the plastic container.
This left about 0.05 to 0.1 mL of wasted vaccine in the vile.
This means that those who received their vaccine before the problem was discovered could have received a smaller dose of just 0.2 mL.
The two medical workers who spoke up about the problem said that managers and tent leaders at the vaccination site wanted “sweep the problem under the rug” in order to keep vaccination numbers high.
Officials at the California Office of Emergency Services (OES) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, both agencies that run the site, reportedly didn’t know about the problem until Tuesday, when KTVU alerted them about the problem.
Brian Ferguson, spokesman for the California OES, said that because the whistle-blowers brought the issue to light, high-level meetings were held on Tuesday among their agencies, as well as the state Department of Public Health, U.S. Health and Human Services, and Pfizer, to determine what to do next.
He said that the stakeholders felt the amount was “negligible” and that there was no need to contact any of the patients who may have received smaller doses of the vaccine.
“We don’t think anyone was formally under-dosed,” Ferguson said during an interview.
He also said that after talking to both doctors and Pfizer, authorities were told that the dosage fell into proper health guidelines and protocols.
The syringes are still being used at the site, but they are now reportedly being filled with 0.4 mL of vaccine.