MADISON, Wis. — In Wisconsin, some people who are not eligible to receive a vaccine are still getting vaccinated. Although it can seem like people are cutting in line, it’s a result of extra doses at clinics.
Vaccinators are forced to decide how they can get those shots into arms as quickly as possible.
One of the most recent, notable examples is the vaccination of Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry. He tweeted that he got vaccinated last week because his wife’s uncle alerted them that there were extra doses that would go to waste.
Lasry is 33 years old and technically not eligible for a vaccine under DHS’s guidelines. There are still hundreds of thousands of people over the age of 65 who are eligible and haven’t had a chance to get the vaccine yet.
This week I was vaccinated! My wife got a call from her uncle that works in a facility that had extra doses that were going to go to waste if not used right away. With Lauren early in her pregnancy, we wanted to ensure our home, and entire community is safe for everyone. pic.twitter.com/bctLVytyu6
— Alex Lasry (@AlexanderLasry) January 29, 2021
“We don’t want a dose wasted, we need all of these doses in arms. And that is how this can happen, even with excellent planning,” said DHS Deputy Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk at a press conference Friday.
She said DHS cannot police every single vaccine.
“Once you’ve gone into a vial in a day, you can’t just put it back in the refrigerator and use the rest tomorrow. You have to empty that particular vial,” said Willems Van Dijk.
Whether some patients don’t show up to a clinic or vaccinators are able to get a sixth dose out of Pfizer’s five-dose vial, it leads hospitals to have to find someone else to vaccinate.
UW Health has a list of patients that they’re prepared to call in case they have extra doses.
“We will go through and say, ‘Ok, we need 5 people at this location.’ And we will go ahead and capture those, send them an immediate notification and get them on site. So it’s about having a premade list of folks who you know are eligible,” said Dr. Matt Anderson at UW Health.
Anderson said although having extra doses is unexpected, UW Health is planning ahead so they know everyone on that list is 65 years or older and eligible for a vaccine under DHS’s guidelines.
“We actually have geolocation data that we’re able to use so that we know if someone is on the east side or the west side as far as being able to get to the vaccine as quickly as possible,” said Anderson.
But not all hospitals have a list like this, and vaccinators can handle extra doses in different ways.
SSM Health doesn’t have a list. Instead, their protocol is to look on site at its vaccination clinics to find someone eligible when there are extra doses.
“Because we have multiple vaccination sites we can also transport any additional doses to another site depending on the need or volume. We are diligent and committed to not letting any doses go to waste,” SSM Health said in a statement.
From Lasry’s tweet, it sounds like the clinic he went to called anyone they knew that could be there as soon as possible, no matter whether they were eligible or not.
“What can happen is then you have people who are unfairly advantaged by that process and that’s not what any of us want to see happen,” said Anderson.
On Friday, Governor Tony Evers said he’d rather see something not eligible receive a vaccine than see a vaccine wasted.
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