Drivers stranded in snowstorm get leftover COVID-19 vaccines
Health care workers in Oregon set up an impromptu COVID-19 vaccine clinic after they were stranded in the snow on their way home from a vaccination event.
A group of about 20 health care workers with the Josephine County Public Health Department were driving back from a vaccination event at a local high school when a snowstorm stranded them on a highway, according to the health department.
The workers left the event with six leftover doses of COVID-19 vaccinations, which they planned to administer to recipients in nearby Grants Pass, Oregon.
Realizing the doses would expire while they were stuck in the snow, the health care workers walked from car to car to offer other stranded motorists a chance to receive the vaccine.
Photos shared by the health department on Facebook show the mask-wearing health care workers, who also had an ambulance on hand, administering vaccine shots to surprised motorists.
All six of the leftover vaccine doses were administered during the snowstorm, according to the health department.
One person who received the vaccine on the road was a Josephine County Sheriff's Office employee who arrived to late for the vaccination event at the high school, but ended up stranded at the same spot as the health care workers on their way home.
"Honestly, once we knew we weren’t going to be back in town in time to use the vaccine, it was just the obvious choice," Michael Weber, Josephine County's public health director, told The New York Times of administering vaccines on the road. "Our No. 1 rule right now is nothing gets wasted.”
