200 city workers jump line, get vaccinated through Sparrow

None were eligible, says county health officer

Posted

Two hundred city of Lansing employees, including Mayor Andy Schor and two members of the City Council, jumped the line in January to be vaccinated against COVID-19, putting them ahead of 40,000 other Ingham County residents qualified to inoculate them.

Schor said that he and 199 other city employees accepted private invitations last month from Sparrow Health Systems to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. They did so despite failing to meet any state eligibility criteria for a shot, according to the Ingham County health officer.

Councilman Brandon Betz, who represents the east side, and Council President Peter Spadafore, an at-large member, also received inoculations. Betz was one of the 200 city employees to receive it, while Spadafore apparently received his apart from the Sparrow program for city employees.

Sparrow officials told City Pulse last week that vaccines were offered to city staff in a pilot program ahead of widespread distribution. Schor also said the city was offered vaccines on a “use it or lose it” basis, claiming doses would have otherwise gone wasted.

Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail has since labeled that invite-only pilot program a “mistake,” noting that none of those 200 employees were properly classified as Priority 1B individuals — like essential frontline workers and those over 75 — under federal guidelines.

Schor and Betz are decades from senior status under vaccine distribution guidelines. In Ingham County, the focus is specifically on those over age 70 because of the high mortality rate in that age group. Shots for those over 65 only just started last week. Vaccines are otherwise only available for emergency first responders — like healthcare personnel, firefighters, ambulance crews and police officers — and “essential employees” like teachers and grocery store staff.

After that news broke, City Pulse contacted all Council members to ask if any had been vaccinated.

Spadafore twice denied he’d been inoculated, then called a reporter to “come clean,” as he put it. He said he received early access through an entirely separate invitation from a “private healthcare provider” that he declined to identify by name. Sparrow and McLaren Greater Lansing are the only private providers in Lansing with access to doses of the vaccine. The other source is the Ingham County Health Department.

Officials at both hospital providers didn’t respond to questions about vaccine distribution irregularities.

Like Schor and Betz, 35-year-old Spadafore failed to check the boxes that would have made him eligible for a shot last month. There is no specific carveout in state guidelines on administering vaccines in the interest of continuity of government. Accordingly, East Lansing Mayor Aaron Stephens and other officials at Meridian Township said they haven’t yet had vaccines.

Meanwhile, the six other members of the Lansing City Council — Kathie Dunbar, Jeremy Garza, Adam Hussain, Patricia Spitzley, Brian Jackson and Carol Wood — said they either didn’t receive or declined the recent invitation from Sparrow to skip the vaccine distribution queue.

Dunbar said she had issues with her email and missed the invitation till it was too late but would have declined the offer. Spitzley said she was invited on Wednesday, Jan. 13, to schedule an appointment for the following Saturday, but she didn’t check her inbox until after the shots had already been administered to 200 employees.

Spitzley, 56, also said that she would have tried to give her appointment to her senior citizen mother or frontline employee sister and, at her younger age, would have declined to take the shot.

“I wouldn’t have ever considered taking the vaccine before either of them could,” Spitzley said, labeling both the Sparrow invitation and the city’s distribution plan as a “missed opportunity” and expressing disappointment that more effort was not taken to get those shots in the right arms.

Wood, 69, said that she declined the shot and that she would “wait her turn.” But as the executive order of the senior citizens’ service organization RSVP, she would have “moved heaven and earth” to secure those vaccines for local senior citizens rather than the city’s top officials.

Hussain, 37, declined the offer but is eligible for the shot through Waverly Community Schools.

Schor, Spadafore and Betz have each described their private invitations as time sensitive — suggesting doses would have been wasted if not for their willingness to receive them. Schor said he also took one to set an example, though he never publicly announced his intention.

An email sent to Lansing employees from the Human Resources Department appears to have offered vaccine appointments on a first-come, first-serve basis without regard for whether they were considered “frontline essential workers” that had prolonged contact with the public.

Schor has also said that list included parking enforcement and code enforcement officers.

In hindsight, city officials should have sought out senior citizens and other at-risk people who had been waiting in line for the shot, Schor told Dave Akerly at 1320 WILS on Friday. Spadafore also expressed regret, though noting he incorrectly thought he was eligible at the time.

Both have said that a shot in the arm — regardless of eligibility — is a shot put to good use.

Before receiving the vaccine, all healthcare providers signed a “provider agreement” with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control that spells out an obligation to administer doses “in accordance with all requirements and recommendations” of the CDC — including the prioritization schedule. It also notes that federal funding will be withheld to any organization that fails to comply with those priority guidelines.

Records show that nearly all of that clinic’s 1,000 appointments for second shots are booked.

“I can’t speak to what they’re doing at all,” Vail said of Sparrow and McLaren. “I don’t know what they’re doing or how they’re handling their strategy, but it’s imperative that we all stick to guidance on vaccine priorities for these groups. Usually, these doses are easy to manage.”

Vail also said she doesn’t have insight into why top city officials have been able to cut the line. 

And while she “cannot guarantee” that some vaccines administered through the Health Department also could have made their way to people who weren’t eligible to receive them, she stressed that multiple “checks and balances” are in place to prevent those errors.

The deep-cold-storage Pfizer doses administered locally must be used in five days once refrigerated and within seven hours once they reach room temperature, Vail said. Unlike Sparrow and possibly McLaren, the Health Department hasn’t had any issues finding the right arms.

Of late, the biggest concern has instead been focused on fueling a steady supply of vaccine to meet the demand. At least 40,000 eligible Ingham County residents were still waiting in line for their appointments this week as state and federal officials scrambled to ship more doses.

Sparrow officials told the Lansing State Journal that the hospital system is doing its best to prioritize people who are actually eligible for the vaccine, which reports vaccinating more than 22,000 people since December. It’s unclear how many of those people fit priority guidelines.

Sparrow officials told the Lansing State Journal that the city “sent who they sent” to the clinic.

Regardless, there also appears to be no real oversight — and no consequences — from the state to ensure that healthcare providers bother to stay in line with the current prioritization schedule. A Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman, Lynn Sutfin, explained:

“We do not want providers to waste vaccines and would rather they provide vaccines to someone outside of the prioritization groups as opposed to throwing it out if it comes down to it,” Sutfin said in a statement, refusing to answer questions. “No shot in the arm is ever wasted as getting this vaccine is our way out of the pandemic and returning to some sense of normalcy.”

Betz said he also plans to start knocking on doors later this month to discuss the economy with local residents after he receives the second dose of his vaccine. Health officials encourage everyone that received their first dose to receive their second, regardless of priority line. Those who have been vaccinated are still advised to stay six feet from others under CDC guidelines. 

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here




Connect with us