Marjorie Beck and her husband are both in their late 50s with medical conditions that make them more vulnerable to getting severely ill from COVID-19.
That’s why the Lebanon County couple took their earliest opportunity to get the new COVID-19 booster, receiving them at a Rite Aid in Palmyra on Sept. 17.
Or so they thought.
The next day, Rite Aid called to say they were given standard Pfizer vaccine rather than the new Pfizer booster formulated to protect against the two omicron variants which now account for almost all new cases. The employee said everyone who came to the Palmyra store for a booster on Sept. 17 received the wrong vaccine, according to Marjorie Beck.
Now the Becks must now wait two months before they are eligible for the new booster.
It means the Becks lack the protection they hoped for as they enter the fall season when doctors expect another upturn in COVID-19 illnesses.
It’s especially significant for them because they both have jobs that expose them to many people and don’t allow them to work at home to lower their risk.
“I was upset. I told her I’m not happy about this. I don’t understand how you can be negligent for an entire day,” Marjorie Beck said.
In a written statement, Rite Aid told PennLive it has notified everyone who was affected and added, “we take this matter very seriously, and have taken steps to prevent this from occurring again.”
The statement didn’t address how many people were affected or the cause of the mistake.
Aside from lacking specific protection against the newer BA. 4 and BA. 5 variants provided by the new boosters, there’s no medical risk from receiving another dose of the older vaccine, which is still being used on people just starting the vaccination process and, until the arrival of the new booster, was used for boosters.
Meanwhile, the mistake doesn’t come as a total shock.
Versions of the new booster are available from both Pfizer and Moderna. In each case, the vials are similar to earlier varieties of the vaccines. Moreover, providers often have vials from two and possibly three manufacturers, with some vials holding doses for children, some holding single doses, some holding multiple doses, and some holding vaccine that must be diluted.
That has caused some doctors and others to worry about the potential for mistakes, and question why Pfizer and Moderna didn’t use methods such as distinctly different colors for caps and labels of the vials. Vaccination providers that are short-staffed or especially busy are considered most vulnerable to making mistakes.
“When the vials look so similar and the writing is so small, it could lead to an error,” said Kimberly Cimarelli, the director of inpatient pharmacy services at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
Cimarelli said when doses for children became available, Pfizer and especially Moderna did a better job of distinguishing between the various vials, using tactics including gray, orange and maroon caps.
As it stands, Pfizer and Moderna have issued warnings to providers, with a letter from Pfizer saying “It is important to carefully read the labels to differentiate between the vaccines.” Some state health departments have also issued special warnings.
The concern over booster mistakes is compounded by the fact many people are already hesitant about the vaccines, with mistakes having the potential to make people avoid boosters, which the government and most doctors are promoting as a way to offset the fact that immunity from vaccination and earlier boosters, as well as from getting COVID-19, fades over time.
Future variants of the ever-evolving virus also mean people will continue to need boosters, maybe annually.
Cimarelli said the medical center takes assorted steps to prevent mistakes, including keeping the various vaccine varieties in separate, well-marked bins, and educating staff about the varieties. The medical center also uses a bar code system which verifies that the selected medicine is the right one for each patient.
“You always want to make sure the product you have in hand is the exact product you need, and you can’t just look at it quickly and think I have the right product,” she said.
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