As Nashville froze, health officials rushed to use 500 vaccine doses due to expire
After freezing weather canceled many COVID-19 vaccinations in Nashville and surrounding counties, health officials hurried Wednesday to use more than 500 doses on the verge of expiration at impromptu vaccination drives in a local homeless shelter, the post office and a historically Black neighborhood.
Dr. Gill Wright, interim Nashville health director, said Thursday the city thawed about 400 doses for appointments that were later canceled by the storm. Since the doses can’t be refrozen and must be used within five days, the city was facing a deadline.
Health officials took these doses to the Nashville Rescue Mission and Room at the Inn, where hundreds of people were vaccinated in one day, Wright said. The city also vaccinated some people from a standby list, and ultimately all doses at risk of expiring were used, Wright said.
Nashville also held a second “pop-up” vaccination clinic in North Nashville with about 100 doses it received from Williamson County, where doses were also at risk of expiration due to canceled appointments. These doses were primarily given to people of color and residents over 65 who have underlying health conditions, said Dr. Alex Jahangir, chair of the Nashville coronavirus task force.
Some of the Williamson County doses were also used to vaccinate employees at the Nashville post office, who were snowed in and unable to return home, according to a statement from the Tennessee Department of Health.
“We are not going to let any vaccine go to waste,” Jahangir said.
This rush to vaccinate was the most dramatic impact of the intersection of Nashville’s vaccination efforts and the ongoing winter storm, which buried the city in days of sleet, snow and freezing rain. Icy roads brought much of the city to a standstill in an event echoing the tornados, blackouts and virus shutdown of nearly one year ago.
As a result of the dangerous weather, Nashville closed testing sites and canceled vaccination appointments throughout much of the week. Wright said the weather created a four-day delay in the city’s vaccination efforts, and the shipment of doses meant to arrive this week has been delayed until early next week.
The storm hit just as Nashville and much of Tennessee reported a promising reduction of the coronavirus outbreak by virtually every measurement. After peaking in early January, infections and hospitalizations in the city have steadily dropped for five weeks, falling to levels not seen since early November — before the worst of the winter surge.
Virus measurements fell to new lows this week after the storm closed testing centers, but these statistics are unlikely to be a true measurement of the virus. Nashville reported less than 100 new cases on Wednesday and Thursday.
“Let’s be honest here: This is most likely because the cold weather has likely affected the number of tests being administered,” Jahangir said. “But the positive news here is, of the tests that were administered, the seven-day percent positive rate is still low at 5.8%.”