According to an estimate by the Kaiser Family Foundation, there are over 26 million excess doses in state reserves, many of which are set to expire this summer or early fall. “We’re drowning in this stuff,” Robert Ator, an Arkansas Air National Guard member leading the state’s vaccine distribution effort, told STAT News. “It’s starting to get a bit silly and we want to make sure we’re being good stewards.” Despite 100,000 shots set to expire at the end of July, the federal government hasn’t been able to reallocate them, citing logistical issues. Other states are facing similar problems: Delaware has 25,768 shots expiring in August, Colorado has 352,533 doses expiring this summer, and North Carolina has 119,756 doses expiring in July and another 854,548 expiring in August.

While the Biden administration pledged last month to donate 500 million vaccines throughout the world — a significant gift, but far short of the 11 billion estimated by the World Health Organization required to end the pandemic — the bulk of these shots have not yet been produced. The appeal of figuring out the logistics to ship the expiring shots abroad is that they can be effective now, if only in relatively small numbers.