New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
CT declines to ID vaccine recipients
State DPH won’t send names, birthdays of inoculated to CDC
WASHINGTON — In order to ship to millions of vaccine doses and quickly put shots in arms, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is gathering unprecedented amounts of data on Americans who receive the COVID-19 vaccine from states who usually keep this information largely to themselves.
When individuals get the COVID-19 vaccine in Connecticut, the doctor, nurse or pharmacist will enter their name, which company’s vaccine they received and other information into a state immunization database. The state will then share some of this data with the CDC on a regular basis.
As states and federal government partner on the monster logistical challenge of vaccinating every American, this data will be the backbone ensuring the vaccine gets where it needs to go and monitoring progress toward herd immunity to coronavirus.
The CDC requested that states sign data use agreements and share information from their vaccine registries to track who gets which vaccines doses and when. The CDC asked for, but did not require states to give them the names, birthdays and addresses of vaccine recipients.
Connecticut signed an agreement but will not give over personally identifiable information, said Maura Fitzgerald, a spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Public Health.
“When the process for data sharing was set up, CTDPH determined that personally identifiable information (PII) was not necessary to include and that it would be more efficient and expedient to get the system up and running without including PII,” Fitzgerald said.
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo this month raised concerns that names and addresses from the vaccine registries could be used by the federal government for immigration enforcement. New York also opted not to send names and addresses to the CDC, and Cuomo said he secured an agreement from the agency that the state’s vaccine data would only be used for public health purposes.
Sources in Connecticut government said they did not share Cuomo’s concerns and thought he misunderstood what the CDC was asking for.
The CDC has said it will use this personally identifiable information to deduplicate its datasets. It did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
The CDC, which is overseeing vaccine distribution with the U.S. Department of Defense, will use the vaccine data provided by states to ship doses in the correct quantities at the right time and address any problems that could arise.
“Basically they want to be able to track in real time, where all of the vaccine is at any given time,”
said Jeffrey Aeschlimann, Infectious Diseases Pharmacist Specialist at UConn Health, who is helping oversee COVID-19 vaccinations there.
“They essentially want to have information on whose got which lot number of the batches of the vaccines,” he added. “That obviously allows them to track issues with production or quality of the manufacturer product comes up, they can very easily trace who got those doses very quickly.”
Adding to the logistical challenge, both the PfizerBioNtech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed and Johnson and Johnson’s coronavirus shot could be ready for arms as soon as February, Moncef Slaoui, the scientific head of the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine operation said this
month. Both the PfizerBioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two doses, a few weeks apart. The vaccine data collected will show who gets which type of vaccine and when, so the patient can get their correct second dose on time.
The data will also allow the CDC to know how many Americans have received the vaccine and where. Herd immunity is when a high enough percentage of people have protection from a disease — either through previous infection or immunization — so the virus is unlikely to spread. Researchers at the CDC have not determined exactly what percentage that is for COVID-19, but it’s a large majority.
Some Americans have indicated they’re unwilling to get the shot, however. A
USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Tuesday showed 20 percent of respondents said they would not take the vaccine, while 46 percent said they would get their shot right away if it were available.
Connecticut will use the COVID-19 vaccine data it collects to assess whether there are geographic areas where people are not getting the shot or places where fewer people are agreeing to take it.
“The system will not target individuals who have not received the COVID vaccination, but rather will assist with pinpointing communities or pockets where immunization rates are lower to allow for more focused efforts in that community,” said Kathy Kudish, DPH Immunization Program Manager.
The CDC and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will also collect information on people’s reactions to the vaccines with one system which health care providers will report adverse patient responses and with a smartphone program called V-safe that vaccine recipients can use to report their own side effects.
COVID-19 immunizations started in Connecticut on Dec. 14 with health care workers, followed by nursing home residents and staff. Essential workers, the elderly and people with health conditions will follow. Healthy adults and minors are not expected to get the vaccine until late spring.
Data collection by states on routine immunizations like chicken pox, measles and other diseases is normal and happens all the time. Sometimes this information is shared with the CDC for national analysis.
Connecticut collects immunization records for all children in a web-based system called CT WiZ, including personal information, which is kept confidential, Kudish explained. The system allows parents and health care providers to maintain a record of a child’s immunizations for school or other purposes and see if they’re due for a new dose. More broadly, it can be used to locate areas where immunization rates are low.
“It’s mainly to help for policy and assessment to make sure we are on the right track for assuring good levels of herd immunity for some of the key vaccine-preventable diseases,” Aeschlimann said.