When a health care company in San Francisco came under fire this month for claiming it did not approve of the people who vaccinated it to make sure they were eligible, it backfired and raised a question : is there anyone who was distributed once? see if medical providers follow the rules?
Surprisingly, however, it is also a warning from some healthcare experts who are concerned that the fact that the bad actors are attacking too hard could delay the delay because new variants of the deadly disease are gaining steam.
“It’s a balance,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, a Sacramento-based group.
The debate over the monitoring of vaccine providers began this week after NPR published a report based on leaked internal communications, which claims that One Medical, a competent healthcare provider popular among technology companies, people who are not eligible to discuss appointments for coronavirus vaccines, do not allow and get the coveted chance. Some of the people allegedly worked at the company or were friends or relatives of employees. Patients were allowed to sign up for a free trial to book a vaccine, and the company allegedly did not qualify when people showed up for vaccinations.
One Medical disputes the idea that it does not scientifically ignore the admission requirements, and the company says that it has improved its investigation process.
The state has tapped Blue Shield to decide how vaccines are allocated, but it is not clear how the government monitors who gets shots after the vaccines are distributed. State health officials did not immediately respond to a question about whether they were conducting audits, conducting unannounced inspections or taking any other steps to prevent healthcare providers from abusing the vaccine. Santa Clara County requires vaccine providers to sign distribution agreements that ensure that only those vaccinated under California Department of Public Health guidelines. San Mateo says it has ‘continuous communication’ with suppliers to ensure the vaccine is properly distributed. But it turns out that most policing comes after questions arise.
The governor’s office said on Wednesday it would review its vaccination for vulnerable communities after news broke that access codes were being shared widely with ineligible people, enabling them to book appointments at mass vaccination centers , including the Oakland Coliseum.
In response to the One Medical controversy, several Bay Area provinces, including Alameda, San Mateo and San Francisco, said this week that they had stopped supplying the vaccine to the company. San Francisco has asked the company to return approximately 1,620 doses of Pfizer vaccine. Santa Clara County said One Medical provides about 300 doses to the company’s healthcare workers, but has no future plans to award more vaccine to One Medical.
Increasing stories about people stepping up the line for vaccines have caused anger among residents, especially those in eligible populations, who are still struggling to find an appointment. One Medical is not alone. The Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose recently came under fire when news leaked that it had vaccinated Los Gatos teachers before they were eligible.
But health experts and ethicists warn that policing or giving up on actors too badly can have unintended consequences.
Santa Clara County, for example, withheld the vaccine from the Good Samaritan, and the hospital eventually closed its vaccination clinic, and some residents scrambled to shoot elsewhere.
“It’s clearly not fair that people who are healthy and young and have the means to jump the line and get it above others,” said Monica Gandhi, an expert infectious disease at UCSF. ‘On the other hand, my whole mindset about vaccination and logistical challenges is that the fewer obstacles we have, the fewer levels we have, the fewer restrictions we have, we’re actually just going to get it faster from people, and we’M all going in arrive there anyway. ‘
Herd immunity, she noted, is the end goal, and people are better protected from the deadly disease when people around them are vaccinated.
Gandhi also pointed out that voting rights are a warning of what could happen if the distribution of vaccines is too limited.
“I’m just thinking about voting and what happened to all the voter legislation that ultimately led to voter oppression,” she said, pointing out that efforts to advance the turnout and make voting easier during the Georgia pandemic to bear fruit with a record turnout.
Charles Binkley, director of bioethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said there should be a system of control and balance, but ‘I’m worried about the old adage to cut your nose off to spit in your face. ‘
Instead of provinces pulling the vaccine supply from One Medical, he would rather see health departments work together and give the company time to improve.
“I would rather have a system in which we allow bad players rather than have it so restricted that we turn people away, especially the defenseless,” Binkley said.
Wright, the consumer advocate, hopes that with a new Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine expected to be approved and available soon, the vaccine supply will increase to the point that it is no longer a problem to find out who to prioritize.
“Hopefully within a few weeks we are in a world of surplus rather than scarcity,” he said. “And then the question is not about prioritization, but also about outreach.”