Hospital employee let COVID vaccine doses expire intentionally, Wisconsin officials say

A Wisconsin hospital system says an employee intentionally allowed hundreds of COVID-19 vaccine doses to expire, officials say.

Aurora Health Care initially said an employee forgot to return about 500 doses of the Modern vaccine to a refrigerator after pulling them out to access another item at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton. Now officials say the employee in the pharmacy admitted to purposefully leaving the vaccine unrefrigerated Friday night, forcing the hospital to discard the doses the next day.

In an update Thursday afternoon, Dr. Jeff Bahr, president of Aurora Medical Care Group, said the investigation revealed the now-fired employee also left the vials without refrigeration on Christmas Eve.

The hospital was unaware of this when it administered doses to 57 employees within the 12-hour limit after first learning of the incident, Bahr said. This means the vaccine will be less effective or ineffective but won’t harm the employees, Bahr said.

“We feel strongly that our processes are sound,” Bahr said. “Again, this fell more to a bad actor being involved rather than a bad process.”

The hospital did not release the motive for tampering with the vaccine. The FBI, Wisconsin Department of Health and local police are investigating, Bahr said.

“We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic,” Aurora Health Care said in a statement. “We are more than disappointed that this individual’s actions will result in a delay of more than 500 people receiving their vaccine.”

Aurora Health Care says more than 23,000 employees had been vaccinated as of Wednesday.

This story was originally published December 31, 2020 at 9:35 AM with the headline "Hospital employee let COVID vaccine doses expire intentionally, Wisconsin officials say."