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At hospitals affiliated with NYU, Columbia, Harvard and Vanderbilt, 20- and 30-something grad students, IT and billing staff and administrators (none of whom see patients) have been vaccinated ahead of the elderly and other high-risk populations 1/x https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/health/coronavirus-hospitals-vaccinations.html
You may say, well, so what? At least the doses are being used. That's true, but hospitals, especially, are well positioned to vaccinate high-risk groups (their patients!) and many have interpreted "frontline staff" very liberally. 2/x
As a member of the CDC advisory board said to me, they the recommendations were never intended to include administrators or grad students who never come into contact with patients. 3/x
When the hospitals, "custodians" of the state's vaccine supply, were done vaccinating their frontline staff, they could have contacted their state departments of health instead of rolling out to employees who never see patients. 4/x
In the 4 hours since this story has been up, I've received more than a dozen emails and DMs from people at other institutions who are seeing the same thing. The practice is rampant.
Allowing healthy young employees to cut in line ahead of people who really need the vaccine "is such a naked display of privilege," as one staffer told me. Thanks to all the sources whom I cannot name and to @SaskiaPopescu and @fadenethx https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/health/coronavirus-hospitals-vaccinations.html
