Paula Burch / Tulane University Originally published on December 17, 2020 8:05 pm State health officials said they may be able to administer more than the 39,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine they expected to receive this week. Dr. Joseph Kanter, head of the Louisiana Department of Health’s COVID-19 response, said health care workers got a bit of a surprise as they administered the first doses of the long-awaited vaccine. “Pfizer put a little bit of lagniappe in the vials,” Kanter said. “Hospitals are finding an extra dose in the vials here and there.” Kanter said it's fairly typical for vaccine manufacturers to slightly overfill their vials. And depending on the gauge of needle and amount of saline used in dispensing the dose, people distributing the COVID vaccine are finding that they can get a sixth complete dose out of a vial labeled as having only five.