U.S. has wasted a lot of COVID vaccines; that’s normal
The CDC reported that over 82 million doses of COVID vaccines were wasted, representing 11 percent — one in nine — of the doses provided by the manufacturers. Even at a modest cost of $30 per dose, this represents around $2.5 billion of taxpayer dollars.
This sounds bad. More government waste, for a product that offers significant societal benefits. How could this happen? What contributed to the waste? Mainly two factors.
First, cold chain requirements. High performance refrigerators are required to keep the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines at subzero temperatures to maintain their potency, with no margin for error. A power outage without ample backup electricity or a refrigerator accidentally getting unplugged can ruin hundreds of doses, costing thousands of dollars. Moreover, given the thawing needed to administer the vaccines, it is challenging to plan supply availability as the uptake of vaccines has waned.
Second, multiple dose vials: The vaccine is packaged in vials containing five or ten doses. If a vial is not completely used within a time later after being thawed, the remaining vaccine doses must be discarded. If a provider must choose between vaccinating a person and wasting several doses, or saving the dose by not immunizing the person, the clear choice is to give the vaccine and waste the unused doses. Most people would agree.
So is an 11 percent wastage rate acceptable? Is it within supply chain norms for perishable items?
Numerous common perishable items are wasted at rates well over 11 percent. The USDA estimates that 31 percent of the available food supply is wasted. Restaurants and school cafeterias can’t operate efficiently without making food they can’t use. Given the water that goes into producing food, water is high on the list of wasted commodities.
Energy is another high waste item. Much of it is just wasted in the usual sense. All of us have left a room and forgot to turn the lights off. Most of us have forgotten to turn down the heat at night or when we leave the house during the day. But much is wasted in normal use. We have to idle our cars at stop lights and traffic jams, or in line to pick up food or coffee at a drivethrough place.
So is wasting one in nine doses of the COVID-19 vaccine a real problem? Or is it just the cost of doing business? It’s partly the latter, but it could be the former.
The 11 percent wastage rate would only be an issue if there was a shortage of such products. Domestically, that is not the case. In fact, vaccine uptake has stalled domestically, despite ample supply and a well-developed infrastructure to support the delivery and administration of the vaccines.
This can change if funding is not approved in Congress, delaying vaccine contracts being signed that could lead to a vaccine shortage later in the year. If this occurs, every dose wasted could be one fewer person protected. We’d have to think more carefully about the choice between vaccinating a person and wasting several doses, or saving the dose by not immunizing the person.
The other issue is vaccine shortages around the globe. However, vaccine manufacturers have ramped up production so that supplies are sufficient to even lead to a possible glut of vaccines.
Instead of bemoaning the 82 million vaccines that have been wasted, let’s celebrate the over 750 million doses distributed and the nearly 600 million doses administered.
Keeping the data in perspective allows everyone to focus on what has been accomplished, rather than what has been lost. The inevitable wastage has had no impact on anyone in the nation not getting vaccinated if they wanted to be.