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Hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 vaccine doses set to expire soon in Michigan

By Amber Ainsworth
Published  July 26, 2021 11:37am EDT
Coronavirus Vaccine
FOX 2 Detroit
Johnson & Johnson vaccine article

FILE - A syringe with vaccine from the manufacturer Johnson & Johnson is ready for injection.

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 vaccine doses are set to expire soon in Michigan.

State health officials reviewed data to assess how many doses of vaccines will expire in the next month.

Related: Oakland Co. Executive explains how county hit 70% vaccinated

According to that review, between 260,000 to 270,000 Johnson & Johnson doses, between 8,000 to 22,000 Moderna doses, and between 106,000 to 114,000 Pfizer doses are expiring in the next four weeks.

Health officials said there is a range in numbers for several reasons:

  • Many providers who were new to Michigan Care Improvement Registry (MCIR) redistributed doses to other providers without updating their inventory records in MCIR
  • Other providers who were inexperienced with MCIR administered doses without being enrolled in the MCIR COVID outbreak module – therefore they had no access to inventory record-keeping for the COVID-19 vaccine.
  • Many inexperienced providers are reporting doses administered without including lot numbers – making it impossible to deduct these doses from their inventory.
  • Vial sizes changed, causing a mismatch between the official number of doses distributed and the actual number of doses administered

These doses are set to expire as COVID-19 cases have risen slightly in Michigan, and the Delta variant continues to spread across the country and the world. There have been concerns that unvaccinated people could allow COVID variants to thrive. 

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said it is providing educational materials to providers for how to manage their vaccine inventory.

The department has also sent some vaccine doses to Minnesota and is working with the CDC to send more doses to other states. It is also working to redistribute vaccines to large pharmacy chains in Michigan.

Vaccine providers are also being urged to share vaccines with other providers.