Stranded drivers get surprise Covid shot as snowstorm traps health team

Oregon health workers who got stuck in a snowstorm on their way back from a Covid-19 vaccination event went from car to car on foot injecting stranded drivers before several of the doses expired.

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The Josephine county public health department said on Facebook that the “impromptu vaccine clinic” took place after about 20 employees were stopped in traffic on a highway after a vaccination clinic.

Six of the vaccines were getting close to expiring so the workers decided to offer them to other stranded drivers.

The shots were meant for other people, but “the snow meant those doses wouldn’t make it to them before they expired”, the health department said.

Not wanting to waste them, staff walked from vehicle to vehicle, offering people a chance to receive the vaccine. A county ambulance was on hand for safety.

All the doses were administered, including one to a Josephine county sheriff’s office employee who had arrived too late for the vaccination clinic but ended up stopped with the others, officials said.

The Josephine county public health director, Mike Weber, said it was one of the “coolest operations” he had been a part of.