Kaiser says thousands in San Francisco area may have received low dose of COVID-19 vaccine

Kaiser Permanente says thousands in the San Francisco area may have received a low dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The company said around 3,900 people who visited Kaiser Permanente Walnut Creek Medical Center on both Oct. 25 and Dec. 10 may have received 0.01 ml to 0.04 ml less than the recommended dose of 0.30 ml, a discrepancy it said is “not considered significant.”

“We took immediate steps to confirm that the issue was isolated and promptly retrained staff and validated their understanding of the correct procedure. We are continuously monitoring so this does not happen again,” Kaiser said. 

Kaiser said it consulted experts and found the slightly lower dosage wouldn’t affect protection against the virus, but offered for those who received the wrong dosage to come in for another shot.

It is unclear why the dosage was lower, but only Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines were affected by the incident.

Updated: 11:33 a.m.