Several people in Ontario say they were accidentally given the equivalent of six doses of the COVID-19 vaccine when they were getting their booster shot. A 75-year-old man is one of the people.
Dozens of people who got their booster shot at the Schomberg Medical Clinic near Newmarket on January 8 have been talking to CTV News Toronto about how they got sick because they have been given the wrong dosage.
It took a few hours for a 28-year-old woman and her husband to find out about the dosage mistake.
She said the receptionist told them that the doctor didn’t dilute the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, which meant they had gotten six times the correct dose.
Each Pfizer COVID-19 vial has 0.25 mL of the product, which is mixed with saline and used for six doses.
As in this case, people got the whole vial of the vaccine because it wasn’t diluted.
She told CTV News Toronto:
“We were kind of freaked out. Then we started feeling really crappy that night. The whole next couple of days we had a really bad fever, chills, and body aches. We were knocked out for a couple of days.”
She said she called her family doctor, and he told her that she had never heard of this before. Over the next few months, their doctor told them to look for any signs of illness.
An incident report from the clinic was sent to her by the clinic. CTV News Toronto has looked at the report. It doesn’t go into much detail, but it says she got an “undiluted dose.”
“The doctor should have never messed that up,”
She added that she is worried about the long-term effects. People at the clinic told her that more than 20 people got an undiluted dose on that day, she said, and she was shocked.
Toronto tried to contact the doctor who gave the shots, but he didn’t answer. It says that the first time they gave COVID-19 vaccines was on January 8.
The Daughter’s Confessions
She said her father, who was 75 years old, was very lethargic and confused.
“He had no appetite. He wasn’t eating for about two days.”
She said that her father was taken to see his family doctor.
“My dad luckily was okay. He had his blood checked, his heart rate checked. We did everything that public health told us to do, including contacting poison control.”
They also filed a complaint with the College for Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. CTV News Toronto also talked to the mother of a teenager who was given an undiluted dose of the drug by his doctor.
In a statement, York Region Public Health said that they had been told about the mistake at Schomberg Medical Center.
Patrick Casey, Director of Corporate Communications, said:
“We know this type of incident can cause anxiety for many people. Rest assured COVID-19 vaccines are safe and administration errors are extremely rare.”
Casey didn’t say how many people took the wrong dose.
