Shelby hopes to regain vaccine responsibilities
Officials say spoilage of supply may trigger federal investigation
A day after the Tennessee Department of Health announced that it was cutting the Shelby County Health Department out of the vaccine distribution process, county health department director Alisa Haushalter said the department’s goal is to again receive and distribute vaccine.
“We will make some internal decisions and make those decisions in partnership with the state as to when we might receive COVID vaccine in the future,” Haushalter said, adding that a remediation plan is in place. The press conference came a day after the Tennessee Department of Health announced it would instead send doses to the city of Memphis, local hospitals and pharmacies after the county wasted a total of 2,400 doses across seven separate
incidents over the month of February. Spoilage of that magnitude could also trigger a federal investigation, state officials said.
State Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey said the county did not adequately track soon-to-expire doses and had a stockpile of more than 51,000 unused doses, which was about 30,000 doses too many.
Those surplus doses are viable until March 6.
Bruce Randolph, Shelby County Health Officer, said county officials “regret deeply” the events that have taken place.
Otherwise, officials did not apologize for the wasted doses or the backlog.
Haushalter pushed back on the numbers provided by the Tennessee Department of Health, since the county counts five doses per vial while the state counts six.
She also said the county inventoried 10-14,000 doses to vaccinate teachers. That, coupled with winter weather and the arrival of more vaccine, led to a surplus, she said.
The thousands of surplus doses that Shelby County has are being redistributed, although appointments will be kept.
Piercey said Shelby County will continue to receive the same amount of vaccine from the state, but the distribution of vaccines will bypass the health department and go to other vaccinating agencies.
Tuesday’s announcement came on the heels of a Friday announcement by Haushalter that 1,315 vaccine doses had expired and were discarded amid the recent severe weather.
Piercey said it was the first time she learned of the vaccine spoilage and the number wasted turned out to be higher than initially reported because Pfizer vials now hold six doses, rather than five.
The state health commissioner also said doses had expired and been discarded as early as Feb. 3, before the recent winter storms.
Haushalter said Wednesday that as inclement weather began, she asked the state to stop shipments of the vaccine until the county could use inventory on hand.
She initially called the state on Feb. 13 to report wasted doses, Haushalter said, then made additional attempts to reach the state but was not able to make a verbal report until Friday, Feb. 19, she said.
Loss of vaccine triggered the arrival of a team that arrived that evening to work with Shelby County on its vaccine distribution processes, Haushalter said.
“As we get toward the end of the week, what we’ll have in place is an agreed upon plan that allows us to work together to address any deficiencies we have in processes internally so we can receive vaccine in the future and distribute that in an effective manner to this community,” Haushalter said.