COLOMBIA – The South Carolina public health agency is withholding additional vials of first-dose COVID-19 vaccine from Horry County Fire Rescue, at least temporarily, after giving injections to people who were not yet entitled to them.
The February 23 ruling by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control represents the first time that it has punished a vaccine supplier for not following the eligibility rules.
The change comes days after Dr. Linda Bell, the state’s chief epidemiologist, has publicly warned that DHEC will crack down on vaccine providers who violate the rules.
Future first-dose allocations, which would have gone to Horry County Fire Rescue, will go to other providers in the area, a DHEC spokeswoman said.
This is the DHEC of February 23, 2021, email to Randy Webster, Assistant administrator of Horry County for public security.
Horry County Fire Rescue issued a statement on February 23, saying it was working on a solution with DHEC “before the increase in disinformation to the public by the media and others”.
“The simple fact is that Horry County has always followed SCDHEC’s guidance, and if SCDHEC were better able to meet its current supply challenges, we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” said Horry County Fire Rescue in his statement.
The public security department is one of three South Carolina county governments that receives doses as a vaccine supplier. As of February 22, he had received 5,400 doses of the Modern vaccine – 70% of them for the first of the two injections required for full immunity, according to DHEC data.
Nearly half of the 5,400 doses received since mid-January have been put into practice, according to the data.
Horry County may finish distributing its stock, but will no longer receive first-dose shipments in the foreseeable future, wrote Louis Eubank, deputy head of DHEC’s immunization section for the local agency.
She also warned that these doses should only go to people who are among South Carolina’s 1.3 million people on the eligibility list.
The public security department will still receive second doses when needed for anyone who gives the first chance, Eubank wrote in the email to Randy Webster, the county’s assistant administrator for public security.
The penalty is not necessarily permanent, she told Webster, as DHEC “can schedule an appointment to discuss this with you” after your department’s supply runs out.
Horry County Fire Rescue said it will distribute the first remaining doses according to DHEC guidance and has a sufficient second dose on hand.
“Assuming that SCDHEC does not change its orientation to us again, we hope to release information to the public on how they can schedule a meeting with us in the near future,” the statement said.
South Carolina remains in the early phase of eligibility for Phase 1A, which includes anyone aged 65 and over, health professionals and medical first responders. On February 22, about 552,500 South Carolina residents received at least one first injection, and nearly 490,000 doses were booked by appointment.
While some Horry County Fire Rescue employees and volunteers may qualify, any police or fireman not directly involved in emergency medical care should wait until the next phase, along with teachers, day care centers and other “essential frontline workers. “.
DHEC officials acknowledged that there is confusion across the state over which rescuers are currently eligible.
But Horry County Fire Rescue went the extra mile by opening access to any employee or volunteer.
DHEC wanted answers after a note was sent to all Horry County employees offering injections “to full-time, part-time and temporary employees, as well as volunteers and interns who work within the capacity of county departments”.
In his February 15 response, EMS manager Ben Lawson explained that county officials are “essential to maintaining the government’s role and mission-critical vaccination and testing efforts for COVID-19”.
But while Phase 1A includes government officials considered “mission critical” to deliver injections and tests for COVID-19, it does not extend to the public officials needed to keep the government running in general.
If so, there would be no need for public school teachers to fight for prioritization in Phase 1A, or for other state agency leaders to ask for their staff to be increased as well. People representing tens of thousands of government officials were among a parade of defenders who attended a panel on Manners and Means of the House on February 16 in search of eligibility.
The decision came after a February 22 meeting between DHEC and Horry County officials.
“As we discussed, police officers, public security officers, county administrative officials or other similar individuals are not eligible for Phase 1A and instead fall into Phase 1B, Phase 1C or even Phase 2,” wrote Eubank in the follow-up the e-mail.
follow Seanna Adcox on Twitter at @seannaadcox_pc.