Report: State closes unsanctioned COVID clinic
An unsanctioned COVID-19 vaccination clinic in western Connecticut was shut down in February after investigators discovered an untrained state representative was handling and preparing vials of vaccine.
The state Department of Public Health also suspended Kent-based High Watch Recovery Center, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center that oversaw the clinic, from holding any new vaccination clinics until it complied with state regulations.
DPH investigators showed up at Heritage Village in Southbury, the largest retirement community in the state, early on the morning of Feb. 4 to find personnel from High Watch running a mobile clinic for 200 residents.
High Watch had failed to inform the state it was going to be running a mobile clinic in Southbury and didn’t have approval to do so, said DPH spokesman Maura Fitzgerald. The rehabilitation center had no prior experience hosting a mobile clinic, she said.
The state eventually decided to stop sending first doses to High Watch for about a month, resuming shipments of the vaccine in early April, records show.
The Connecticut Mirror has obtained the investigation report, internal DPH emails about the incident and correspondence between the state and High Watch officials and their attorney. The records for the High Watch investigation were requested on Feb. 22 under the state Freedom of Information Act; they were released by state officials on May 5.
While the vast majority of the state’s vaccination clinics have been conducted without incident, the issues with High Watch at Heritage Village and a separate investigation into how a CVS in Waterford was vaccinating New York residents show there have been isolated problems that state officials do not publicly discuss during their bi-weekly news conferences about the pandemic and vaccine distribution.
A spokeswoman for DPH did not immediately comment on the High Watch investigation Thursday morning.
In a six-page letter to High Watch officials and their attorney, the head of the DPH Facilities and Licensing Unit, Barbara Cass, outlined a broad range of problems her investigators uncovered at the Southbury clinic, beginning with the fact that the company’s vice president of communications, Jason Perillo, was opening vials of Moderna vaccine and preparing shots even though he was not trained or licensed to do so by DPH.
Perillo is a Republican state representative from Shelton and a former emergency medical technician whose license expired in 2018, DPH officials noted.
“Every single individual handling vaccines was trained to do so by our chief medical officer at High Watch,” Perillo said in an interview Thursday night. “I’d go so far as to say we were given one-onone training.”
In addition to finding Perillo preparing the vaccine, investigators found 10 vials of Moderna vaccine — the equivalent of about 100 doses — unattended on a counter, another 18 vials in a portable cooler with no monitoring temperature gauge, which is required by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a box of syringes left unattended.
Perillo said that the vials of vaccine had been out of the refrigerator for at least an hour and a half when investigators discovered them. He also acknowledged that he was not a licensed health care professional but said he was trained by a physician from High Watch to prepare and administer the vaccine. He said he had been routinely opening vials and preparing shots at clinics High Watch was running at its Kent facility.
In another room, investigators discovered five unlabeled and unattended syringes containing a cloudy white liquid that Perillo told them was the first batch of Moderna vaccine. Investigators also noted the presence of at least two people in a hallway who had been vaccinated but were not being monitored for adverse reactions, as required by the CDC, and poor social distancing among the elderly residents who were waiting to get vaccinated that morning.
DPH officials halted the Heritage Village clinic until they could get personnel from Waterbury Hospital to take over the clinic on Feb 4. The clinic was delayed until Waterbury Hospital personnel arrived and completed vaccinating nearly 300 people. The state also asked Waterbury Hospital to come back several weeks later and administer the second doses.
In an email to DPH staff following the spot visit, vaccine coordinator Benjamin Bechtolsheim ordered them to ensure that High Watch officials received the second doses they needed for their regular clinic in Kent but then to cut them off.
“We basically just want to give him enough doses to wind down commitments and then quietly exit the program,” Bechtolsheim wrote in a Feb. 15 email to both Cass and DPH Chief of Staff Adelita Orefice.