State’s vaccine advisory group is on hold as members ask what’s next
Some say their work is finished; others say they could have done more
In early March, a subcommittee charged with educating the public on aspects of the COVID-19 vaccine met for what would likely be its last time. The single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot had just been granted emergency authorization, and members discussed what kind of outreach health officials might be able to do with the vaccine.
At the meeting’s conclusion, the chairwoman said she was awaiting word from Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration on what the committee — a subgroup of the state’s vaccine advisory panel — would become going forward.
“The decision is not quite finalized at this point as to how we will use the committee,” said state Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton. “Our committee was to provide recommendations on how to communicate. Now the governor’s office has a communications arm, which is doing a great job. So how can we aid them?”
More than a month later, some members of the subgroup are still waiting to hear how to proceed, and many consider their work to be finished. The same is true for members of the main vaccine advisory panel and its two other subcommittees — one that recommended who should be prioritized for the COVID-19 shot and another that discussed the science behind the immunization.
But several members expressed disappointment that they weren’t able to contribute more or weren’t involved in key decisions. Some didn’t feel valued. And the sudden change to an age-based rollout effectively jettisoned hours of work that committee members put in when they thought essential workers and people with health risks would be prioritized for access.
“I have not heard from the Department of Public Health or the governor instructing us about any future role,” said Zita Lazzarini, a co-chair of the allocation subcommittee, which debated who should qualify for the vaccine and when. “We were originally told that it could be nine months, we could have nine months to a year of being available. But I haven’t heard anything about future meetings at this point.”
Lamont’s full vaccine advisory panel, formed in October to study the efficacy of the shots, to weigh who
“My instinct is that over the course of the next couple months, if we find out about vaccines for younger people, if we find out about booster shots, depending on what the variants are, that group could be busy again.”
GOV. NED LAMONT
should receive them first and to help strategize public outreach, hasn’t met since Jan. 14. The two subgroups focusing on allocation and science haven’t convened since February. And the third, focused on communication, last gathered on March 4.
Some members consider themselves to be on standby, should the governor or the state’s public health department need advice on a new vaccine or booster shot.
“I think they’re definitely on standby,” Lamont said. “My instinct is that over the course of the next couple months, if we find out about vaccines for younger people, if we find out about booster shots, depending on what the variants are, that group could be busy again.”
But he gave no formal commitment on when or if the group’s expertise would be sought again.
Acting Public Health Commissioner Deidre Gifford, a cochair of the full vaccine advisory panel, did not respond to requests for comment.
As the panel sits idle, members say the administration should launch a review of what worked and what didn’t — how some members were central to the strategy and others felt sidelined, what was considered successful and what opportunities were missed — should a similar panel be created for the next public health crisis.
“We could think about what to do in the next pandemic, even if it doesn’t mirror this one. It’s always good to do a post analysis of what went well and what went less well,” said Lazzarini, a UConn Health professor.
Shift to age-based rollout was a curveball
The first few months of the vaccine rollout were a flurry of activity for Chris DiPentima. The head of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, who was a member of both the full vaccine advisory panel and its communications subcommittee, helped organize webinars with companies across the state, sent around literature addressing frequently asked questions about vaccines and talked with employers about the latest updates.
At the virtual sessions, which brought together medical experts, state officials and dozens of business leaders, CBIA spent hours fielding questions about who would qualify for Phase 1B, a stage of the vaccine rollout that was supposed to include essential workers like postal staff and grocery store employees, along with elderly residents and people who have certain underlying medical conditions.
Then in late February, Lamont threw a curveball and abruptly switched to an agebased rollout.
DiPentima said many employers were grateful they wouldn’t have to agonize over which staff members qualified for access or how to sign them up. But frustrations were aired over the weeks spent planning for a stage of the rollout that never arrived, and having to explain to workers who were next in line for the vaccine that they would now have to wait.
“I expressed the disappointment of letting air out of the balloon with the pivot, because we had all kind of worked up to this day,” DiPentima said. “These businesses had all spent countless hours — hundreds of hours — trying to understand this next phase and what was going to be required of them. They invested a lot of time, and now we were changing the rules on them.”
On top of that, he said, “those workers who have to go into the office — the 40-yearold worker who is still going to have to go in the office every day, or go onto the manufacturing floor every day and be exposed to colleagues and circumstances where maybe the virus was prevalent — they’re going to be further down the line.”
DiPentima wishes more members of the vaccine panel had been consulted about the shift to an age-based rollout. A handful of people, including some leaders of the advisory subcommittees, were asked for their thoughts just a day or two before the announcement was made, while many others were left in the dark. DiPentima received a phone call shortly before the announcement and expressed a mix of support and concern.
The Rev. Robyn Anderson, a pastor at Blackwell Memorial AME Zion Church in Hartford and a member of the vaccine panel’s communications subgroup, said once the state decided it would prioritize residents by age, she focused on helping people to not feel discouraged.
The organization she co-founded, The Ministerial Health Fellowship, conducts regular outreach in communities of color. During the coronavirus pandemic, that has included everything from talking to residents about the COVID-19 vaccine to handing out educational information and wellness packages with masks, thermometers and other supplies.
“Because people of color were dying at a disproportionate rate, they really thought the (vaccine rollout) was going to be based on pre-existing health conditions, like diabetes and high blood pressure. And that wasn’t how it happened,” Anderson said. “That put somewhat of an emphasis on — here we go again, not really thinking about the fact that people of color are the ones dying in a disproportionate way. And here we are, changing the whole scope of the rollout.”
Victories and missed opportunities
People who played central roles in the vaccine advisory group’s work, including some leaders of its subcommittees, said they felt a sense of purpose and contribution.
Somers, who headed the communications subgroup, described a series of virtual forums she and others put together with health officials to share information and dispel myths. The forums reached a variety of audiences, including nursing home residents and workers, boards of education, municipalities and the business community.
“It’s been very successful in the uptake of people willing to take the vaccine after they’ve had an opportunity to ask questions,” Somers said.
Jason Schwartz, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health and a co-chair of the panel’s science subgroup, said he and others are proud of the work they’ve done — reviewing the safety and efficacy of coronavirus vaccines and making recommendations on whether Connecticut should embrace them. Members of the subcommittee also participated in online forums and other outreach.
“Our subcommittee really did look extensively at all three vaccines as they were moving toward authorization. We looked at hundreds of pages of filings and data and reports around each of those vaccines,” Schwartz said. “We met openly to discuss them and made formal, written recommendations to the governor and to the (main) advisory group.”