Revaxxes Commence After Storage Snafu

Shaquan Browne thought he was fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as he prepared to head back to his home country of Guyana later this week.

Then he got a call from the city health department, letting him know that there was a problem with the last vaccine dose he received — and that he needed to come back to the clinic for another shot in the arm.

Browne is one of roughly 650 people who received a potentially less-effective dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at the city health department’s 54 Meadow St. clinic between Dec. 23 and Feb. 7. 

That’s because, as revealed during a Friday afternoon press conference last week, Pfizer vaccine doses administered during that time at that location were stored in a freezer for longer than they should have been. 

The resulting ​“temperature excursion” may have affected the efficacy of the vaccinations given out during that 46-day stretch. And so the city is now recommending that everyone who got a Pfizer vaccine shot at 54 Meadow St. between Dec. 23 and Feb. 7 get ​“re-vaccinated.”

Browne is one of those people.

Standing in the blistering cold outside of the health department’s 54 Meadow St. offices Monday morning, Browne told the Independent that he got a call from a city nurse on Saturday. 

During that call, the nurse explained the storage snafu, and recommended he come by the health department again for another shot. 

“I told them: You have to be more careful,” Browne said when asked about his response to finding out that the previous dose he received may have been rendered less effective because of a city health department storage issue.

Browne said he is a professional ​“seaman” who is currently on vacation from his job working on ​“supply vessels” that travel all over the world. 

He’s originally from Guyana, and plans on heading back to his home country later this week. 

He said had gotten his second Pfizer vaccine dose in early February. On Monday, he received his second second Covid-19 vaccine shot — with the hopes that this time, there would be no problems with the vaccine dose put into his arm.

From what the Independent could see, Browne was the only person to come to 54 Meadow St. between 10 and 11 a.m. Monday to get ​“revaccinated” because of the previous vaccine storage snafu. The clinic was open from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. As of Tuesday morning, Health Director Maritza Bond had not provided a response to the Independent’s request for how many people affected by this vaccine-storage issue were vaccinated at 54 Meadow St. Monday.

A city employee (who declined to share his name) did stop to talk with the Independent about this issue Monday morning on his way walking into 54 Meadow. 

He said that he too was affected by the vaccine-storage issue — and that he too had received a phone call on Saturday from a city nurse recommending that he get a new shot.

He said that he received his Covid-19 booster vaccination in early January.

“That one really kicked my butt,” he said about his last dose. He said he felt achy and under the weather for a good two days after getting the shot.

Which is why he was surprised when he got a call on Saturday letting him know that that vaccination may have been rendered less effective because of a too-long-in-the-freezer issue.

How does he feel about having to get revaccinated?

“I don’t really care,” he said. He said he plans on getting boosted again.

But not right away. ​“I’m gonna wait at least two more months.”

Mayor: "Important To Respond Quickly"

Asked for an update Monday afternoon on revaccination outreach following the revelation of the vaccine storage issue, city Health Director Maritza Bond (via an email sent by city spokesperson Mary Coursey) said that the health department ​“reached out to 625 individuals by phone but we did not reach everyone. We are continuing our communications efforts which will include a letter to be sent out today to all affected patients.”

Asked if the health department is aware of any people in this group ending up hospitalized with Covid-19 after receiving the potentially less effective dose, Bond said, ​“We do not have that information at this time. As of now we are not aware of any patient who has been hospitalized after receiving one of these doses.”

Elicker, meanwhile, stressed just how uncertain the science is around how these vaccine doses were affected by their too-long storage in a freezer.

“There is not enough research to indicate that vaccines, when they experience ​‘temperature excursion,’ decrease in strength or not,” he said when asked for his thoughts on the matter after an unrelated Monday afternoon press conference. ​“We don’t know if they do, or if they do on a quick downward trend. We don’t know if the vaccine wasn’t as strong.”

In the face of such uncertainty, he said, his administration is taking the ​“cautious” response to recommending that everyone affected by this issue get revaccinated just to be safe.

As for any broader fallout from this storage problem, Elicker said, ​“I want to make sure that people are confident in vaccines, confident in our health department.

“When something like this happens, it erodes some trust. That’s a real problem. So what’s important is how we react to fix he problem.”

He noted that the health department quickly put together a team of nurses Saturday to make phone calls to as many affected patients as possible. They called nearly all of the 650 affected people, even if not everyone picked up the phone. They’ll also be sending out letters to addresses and reaching out by email, if they have that information on file.

“By and large, people that [the nurses] were speaking to were very understanding. Some people were upset,” which is understandable, Elicker said. But ​“people were generally really understanding.”

Elicker also said that on Monday he met with the state Department of Public Health team that will be ​“reviewing” the city’s policies and procedures around storing vaccines ​“to make absolutely sure that we are doing this correctly.”

“I think the important thing is to respond quickly and to make sure that the public trust is strong and to identify if there are other issues,” he said.

Asked for his thoughts on just how long this issue persisted — that is, 46 days between Dec. 23 and Feb. 7 — Elicker said, ​“I found out about this on Friday… I look at the role that I play. I want to make sure that I respond quickly to keep people safe.”