Haushalter: Weather, saving doses for teachers at root of wasted vaccines - The Daily Memphian

A day after state health officials announced 2,400 doses of COVID-19 vaccine expired under lax Shelby County Health Department oversight, one employee has been fired, another has retired and the drumbeat is rising for state and federal investigations.

24, Shelby County Health Department Director Alisa Haushalter admitted she considered resigning but decided her duty as a leader requires her to be “transparent about what happened.”.

“Thankfully, the Tennessee Department of Health is working with the City of Memphis in order to achieve an efficient and effective distribution process.

Tuesday, when the state announced its findings, it said it expected federal partners would also investigate.

Haushalter said Wednesday local efforts to break with state policy and vaccinate teachers early started the ball rolling, with thousands of doses being set aside for them.

When state officials told the Health Department it must wait until early March to vaccinate teachers, some 50,000 doses were on hand.

A variety of factors can lead to doses being lost, including that they were thawed and expired before they were used, that they were left over after clinic sessions, or they were returned after a clinic but had to be destroyed due to changes in temperature, Haushalter said.

“It is a very complicated vaccine campaign and the Pfizer vaccine particularly is very difficult to manage, temperature control, dates it can be in one type of storage and days it can be in another type of storage, and we had multiple, multiple batches coming in,” Haushalter said.

She alerted the state Health Department that doses were lost on Saturday, Feb.

By the end of this week, the Shelby County Health Department will have a plan to work with the state to address deficiencies in local processes.

The hope, she said, is that the Health Department will again be able to receive and distribute vaccine.

For now, the City of Memphis has control of the COVID-19 vaccine and all the other vaccines the Health Department gives, including measles and influenza.

“The health care partners, hospitals and other community partners will be playing a greater role.”.

The decision about allocation will likely be made in a communitywide meeting of the partners, Doug McGowen, chief operating officer for the City of Memphis, said Tuesday.

In a move that was planned for weeks, Christ Community and the City of Memphis opened a drive-through site at Greater Imani Church Wednesday, with appointments to give 1,000 shots a day.

“We’re a contracted operator for the city,” said Shantelle Leatherwood, Christ Community CEO. “We are providing all the clinical services – the actual vaccination – and the city is providing support through volunteers and FEMA to help with registration and checkpoints and data entry.”.