81 New Yorkers Asked To Get Re-Vaccinated After Shots Were Administered At Wrong Temperature

As if a shortage of vaccines wasn’t enough, New Yorkers who were lucky enough to be vaccinated last Monday were called back in due to getting re-vaccinated due to problems in temperature during their earlier visit at the Jones Beach vaccination site on Long Island.

An NBC New York report suggested on Monday that dozens of people in New York were asked to get revaccinated for COVID-19 after their past dose was stored at an improper temperature. The error impacted 81 of the 1,379 doses distributed at the Jones Beach vaccination site on Long Island last Monday, a state department of health spokesperson told the media portal.

Source: Newsday

Upon state health officials claiming that “there will be no extra vaccine-related risks from revaccination”, Email notifications have since gone out to New Yorkers who received these doses, health officials said. The notices detailed the storage error and reassured there was no health risk from the dose, but it would not fully protect against the virus.

“New Yorkers’ health and safety is our top priority, and due to this vaccine’s very specific temperature sensitivity, we have a process in place to identify if any temperature excursions occur,” Jill Montag, spokesperson for the department of health, said in a statement Monday. “This process worked, allowing us to quickly pinpoint this issue, identify the extremely small number of individuals impacted, and immediately begin taking action.”

Source: Nature

To date, more than 3 million doses of the vaccine have been administered across the state. The Jones Beach site issue is the first known instance of temperature storage problems.

Meanwhile, starting Monday, walk-ins will be welcome to make appointments at the two new mass COVID-19 vaccination sites operated by the feds and New York, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Special MTA buses also will run through the surrounding communities to and from the sites — Medgar Evers College in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and York College in Jamaica, Queens— when the centers open Wednesday, the governor said.

Announcing the decision at a press conference on Monday, Cuomo said, “All [residents] have to do is call or go to the website or, starting Wednesday, stop in … make an appointment and come back when your appointment is due.”