J&J vaccine supply to drop

State will get 78,000 fewer doses than expected next week

Maryland health officials expect to see a drastic reduction in the state’s allocation of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine next week — a shortfall that will lead to a 33% drop overall in the availability of first- or single-dose vaccines compared to this week, officials said.

The state will have 78,000 fewer than expected doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine next week, Maryland Health Department spokesman Charles Gischlar said Thursday.

“Please keep in mind that the vaccines are federal assets and the federal government controls our vaccine supply,” state Health Secretary Dennis R. Schrader said Thursday in a letter to vaccine providers. “This significant decrease with no advance notice is a surprise and a disappointment, and we share your frustration.”

The department declined to comment on the reason for the reduction. It comes after a grave error made at an East Baltimore facility tasked with producing Johnson & Johnson and other COVID19 vaccines, resulting in millions of doses going to waste.

The site of the ruined doses, the Emergent BioSolutions plant near the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, does not yet have approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to distribute its

to meet at least once a year and review the inspector general’s performance. The board has not met.

Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming said she welcomes such a meeting.

“I’ve been encouraging this meeting,” she said. “I would hope that whenever it convenes that it’s open to the public because the office is basically the people’s investigator.”

Under the law, the oversight board includes at least five people: the mayor or his designee, the City Council president or his designee, the comptroller or his designee, the city solicitor or an appointed member of the city law department, and a member of City Council appointed by the council president. If the mayor and council president agree, two additional members take seats: deans of law schools at the University of Maryland and University of Baltimore.

“We have been in the process of convening a meeting and expect to do so,” City Solicitor Jim Shea said Tuesday.

Mayor Brandon Scott would welcome a meeting, according to his spokesman.

“Regaining trust in City Hall requires accountability and transparency, so the Mayor fully supports the convening of an advisory board,” spokesman Calvin Harris wrote in an email.

Comptroller Bill Henry plans to designate someone to serve on the board in his place because he works closely with Cumming, “so as to maximize objectivity in the review of the OIG’s work,” spokeswoman K.C. Kelleher wrote.

The NAACP’s Little and Cumming have been at odds since the inspector general released the results in February of her seven-month investigation into the Baltimore state’s attorney. Baltimore’s top prosecutor requested the investigation, saying she believed the findings would put to rest questions about her private businesses and far-flung travels. But after the report was released, Little questioned the objectivity and competency of the inspector general and sent Cumming a letter to ask for a meeting.

“We have significant concerns about how your office conducts investigations and applies its authority,” he wrote. “We are concerned about the targeting of African American elected leaders, as well as African American vendors who contract with

Baltimore City.”

The two sides met privately about a month ago. They have not discussed how it went.

“There has been nothing that the inspector general has said or done prior to our meeting, during our meeting, or subsequent to our meeting that has allayed any of the concerns that we raised,” Little said in the interview Tuesday.

Cumming declined to comment. “I agreed not to discuss the meeting, and I will stand by that,” she said.

Last week, she announced that her office has hired City Hall veteran Anthony McCarthy to aid its communication and equity efforts. McCarthy has worked as spokesman for three mayors — Democrats Sheila Dixon, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Catherine Pugh — and he’s served as a leader in the local chapter of the NAACP.

Cumming’s report on Mosby found she spent 144 days away from Baltimore in 2018 and 2019 — or one workday a week; Mosby’s office has disputed the number of days.

The inspector general also faulted Mosby for not requesting approval from the city’s spending panel for more than a dozen trips in 2018 and 2019. Nonprofit groups flew her to conferences in destinations such as Kenya, Scotland and Portugal. Private attorneys for Mosby argued that because the nonprofits — not taxpayers — paid for her travels, Mosby had no obligation to request approval.

The city solicitor reviewed the matter and sided with Mosby, finding she was not required to seek approval because the city’s administrative policies are unclear. The mayor asked the solicitor and city administrators to recommend policy fixes within 90 days.

Mosby’s office has said the State Ethics Commission also reviewed her travels and found no fault. The commission has said it does not comment on its work.

Meanwhile, The Sun reported last month that federal prosecutors opened a criminal tax investigation into Mosby and her husband, City Council President Nick Mosby. Investigators issued subpoenas for the couple’s financial records, including documents related to their political campaigns, private businesses and charitable donations. The investigators were led into City Hall last month by Cumming, according to surveillance footage obtained by The Sun.

Their attorney has said the couple has done nothing wrong, and called the federal investigation “a political witch hunt.”