Power outages forced health officials to rush to administer 8,400 doses of coronavirus vaccine

HOUSTON – A power outage Monday at a Harris County Public Health facility left officials struggling to administer 8,400 doses of the coronavirus vaccine stored there.

Officials said any doses that were thawing should be administered before 5pm or they would be unusable. That prompted officials to call places in the area who could deliver the doses quickly before they go bad.

One such place was Rice University, which received about 1,000 doses to administer to staff and students on campus.

“We spoke to students in line and when they heard about it, they ran here to get in line,” KPRC 2’s Jacob Rascon reported during his live coverage at the university. “Hundreds and hundreds of people are queuing up.”

Rascon said there were at least 1,000 people in line when he arrived at the gym where they were administering the doses on a first-come, first-served basis.

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In a statement, Houston Methodist officials said they received 1,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from the batch of thawed shots. All those doses had been administered Monday afternoon, officials said.

“We haven’t wasted a drop,” said Robert Schwartz, executive vice president of Houston Methodist Hospital. “It was great for our community that we could deliver these much needed vaccines quickly in the middle of the storm.”

Ben Taub hospital officials also said they were administering the vaccines to staff and patients there who are eligible for the vaccine. The public is not vaccinated in the hospital.

LBJ Hospital and the Harris County Jail were also given doses of the vaccine to administer.