FARMINGTON, Utah – Over 50 people had to return to the Davis County Health Department’s Mass Vaccination Clinic in Farmington after they received a dose of saline instead of their second COVID-19 vaccine dose.

The mixup occurred on April 17, when health officials said a new vaccinator did not mix the vaccine correctly and ended up administering 53 shots of “saline.”

“The vaccinator realized what they were doing and reached out to our clinic leaders,” DCHD communications manager Trevor Warner said in a statement. “Our clinic leaders quickly created a team of people and they proactively started making phone calls to the impacted individuals, of which 37 individuals have already returned to receive a correctly mixed vaccine and all but five individuals have rescheduled for a later date.”

Warner said the department recognizes the error and called the situation a “very rare occurrence.”

“We want to be clear they will not receive a ‘third dose’ of COVID-19 vaccine, but instead they will receive a correctly mixed second dose,” he said. “This is a very rare occurrence but everyone is human and everyone makes mistakes, and this is a mistake that the health department is owning up to. Also, as a result of this error, we have gone over the procedures with all of our vaccinators again and have offered more training to those who feel they need it, as well as instituted new checks and procedures for our clinic leaders to prevent this from happening again.”