A humble medical device could help speed U.S. vaccination effort Emma Court and Anna Edney, Bloomberg Feb. 10, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail A healthcare worker administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in Sacramento, Calif., on Feb. 4, 2021.Bloomberg photo by David Paul Morris. In the race to get people immunized in the U.S., pharmacists made a key discovery -- that vials of Pfizer's covid-19 vaccine contain an extra dose. Extracting that extra bit of vaccine, however, hinges upon the availability of a specialized syringe that is in short supply. When a medication or vaccine is injected, some amount of it can linger in the syringe in what's known as the "dead space" between the plunger and needle. Low-dead space syringes are designed to minimize that, and with it, waste. That makes them a crucial tool in extracting six doses, instead of the five that were expected, from each Pfizer vial.