9.5 pct of delivered COVID-19 vaccines wasted in U.S.: media

A healthcare worker shows a vial of the COVID-19 vaccine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, the United States, on Dec. 14, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

Every dose that goes to waste feels like a missed opportunity considering how successful the vaccines are in preventing death and serious disease.

NEW YORK, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The rate of wasted COVID-19 vaccines was about 9.5 percent of the more than 687 million doses that had been delivered as of late February in the United States, which equates to about 65 million doses, The Associate Press (AP) reported last week.

Nearly 1.5 million doses in Michigan, 1.45 million in North Carolina, 1 million in Illinois and almost 725,000 doses in Washington couldn't be used. In California where 84 million doses were received, about 1.8 percent, or roughly 1.4 million doses, went wasted, according to the report.

State health departments were quoted as saying that they had tracked millions of doses that went to waste, including the ones that expired, those in a multi-dose vial that couldn't be used completely or had to be tossed for some other reason like temperature issues or broken vials.

"From some of the least vaccinated states, like Indiana and North Dakota, to some of the most vaccinated states, like New Jersey and Vermont, public health departments are shuffling doses around in the hopes of finding providers that can use them," said AP in its report.

As the coronavirus pandemic has killed over 6 million people and shattered economies across the globe, "every dose that goes to waste feels like a missed opportunity considering how successful the vaccines are in preventing death and serious disease," added the report.