How some states will attempt to avoid wasting coronavirus vaccines in early distribution stages

Pfizer coronavirus vaccine.
(Image credit: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine, which was submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for an emergency use authorization this week and could be rolled out by mid-December, must be kept in ultra-cold conditions and will initially be shipped in boxes that hold a minimum of 975 doses. Once a vial is thawed and diluted to make five shots, people receiving the vaccine (early on that is expected to be health-care workers), will then have just six hours to get inoculated, Politico reports. Whatever is left over will then spoil.

While there's great excitement about the vaccine's pending authorization, the concern about wasted shots is very real, "especially early on when it will be practically liquid gold," Douglas Hoey, CEO of the National Pharmacists Association, told Politico.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.