Oregon health workers who got stuck in a snowstorm on their way back from a COVID-19 vaccination event went car to car injecting stra...
Oregon health workers who got stuck in a snowstorm on their way back from a COVID-19 vaccination event went car to car injecting stranded drivers before several of the doses expired.
Josephine County Public Health said on Facebook that the 'impromptu vaccine clinic' took place after about 20 employees were stopped in traffic on a highway after a vaccination clinic at Illinois Valley High School.
Six of the vaccines were getting close to expiring so the workers decided to offer them to other stranded drivers.
The shots were meant for other people in Grants Pass, but 'the snow meant those doses wouldn't make it to them before they expired,' the health department said.
Random residents trapped in the snow became the lucky recipients of vaccines in Oregon
While on their way back from a vaccine clinic, health workers with vaccines got caught in snow
Josephine County Public Health posted about the stunning turn of events on Facebook
Not wanting to waste them, staff walked from vehicle to vehicle, offering people a chance to receive the vaccine. A county ambulance was on hand for safety.
All the doses were administered, including one to a Josephine County Sheriff's Office employee who had arrived too late for the vaccination clinic but ended up stopped with the others, officials said.
Josephine County Public Health Director Mike Weber said it was one of the 'coolest operations he'd been a part of.'
While six doses may not seem like many, every vaccination counts in the battle of COVID-19.
Overall, six people received the COVID-19 vaccine while waiting out the snowstorm
Josephine County Public Health Director Mike Weber called it the 'coolest operation'
According to a dashboard being updated by the Oregon Health Authority, 340,359 vaccination doses had been administered in the state by the end of Tuesday.
So far, just 50,587 people in the state are fully vaccinated, meaning they've received both doses of a coronavirus vaccine.
Just this week, childcare workers and those who work in a K-12 school setting became eligible to receive the vaccine in Oregon.
Oregon has seen 139,355 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Of that, 1,904 have succumbed to the virus.
Oregon has administered over 340,000 vaccines as they contend with 1,904 COVID-19 deaths
In the United States, there have been over 25.5 million cases of COVID-19, with the death toll at 428,654 people and rising.
The focus of Joe Biden's administration has turned towards vaccinating as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
The president's goal has been to administer 100 million shots in 100 days.
On Tuesday, the White House announced an increase of vaccine distributions to 10 million for the next three weeks, as well as the purchase of 200 million more vaccines to be delivered over the summer.
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