LINCOLN COUNTY, Maine — EDITORS NOTE: The above video is from our January 22, 2021 story on the reclamation of the thought spoiled Moderna COVID-19 vaccine doses.
The Maine CDC announced this week that more than 4-thousand doses of COVID vaccine set aside two weeks ago because of temperature worries are now safe to use.
That comes as great news to many of the groups that had been sent those doses.
Officials with the Waldoboro Emergency Management Service — originally sent 100 of those doses — are thankful to have the vaccines back in the mix.
Dr. James Li, medical director for Waldoboro EMS, says they will most likely use those doses to complete vaccinating first responders in Lincoln County. One hundred more doses will make a difference, according to Li.
"It's so great, every one of those vials I touch; I think this will make not just one person's life better but a lot of people's lives better," says Li. "Whoever gets the vaccine is also going to be much less at risk for transmitting COVID. It's still not 100 percent, but the immunity we get is so great and so high that it's very hard for the virus to take hold in someone immunized. And that will reduce numbers as well as protecting the person vaccinated. I have said this is the elixir of life."
Temperature indicators on the shipping containers prompted the initial concern about the vaccine doses. But when officials checked the shipment, Dr.Li said the dry ice inside was still intact and the vaccine still cold.
A total of 4,400 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine shipped to Maine were thought compromised, Maine Center for Disease Control (CDC) Director Dr. Nirav Shah said during January 19th's coronavirus briefing.
According to Shah at the time, the Maine CDC received reports from several recipient sites that a shipment of the vaccine had exceeded the temperature required for storage. However, that next Thursday, Shah said Operation Warp Speed and McKesson, the distributor, now believe the doses were too cold.
This Thursday. Dr. Shah said it had gotten word from Moderna, that the COVID vaccine is still safe and effective to be used.