About a dozen people working for The Williams School, a private school in New London, have received a coronavirus vaccine that is not eligible to enter the current distribution phase of the state.
In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, the Connecticut Department of Public Health said: ‘This was a notification and user error. The school informed us about the error and was able to resolve quickly and vaccinate a small number of people early. ‘
A spokesman for the college’s preparatory school for students in grades six to 12 said that the vaccine administration management system, an online disease control and prevention center used to manage vaccine administration, had asked the school’s coronavirus coordinator to submit contact information for employees. done.
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Williams School spokeswoman Sharon Gaudreau, in turn, received an email from VAMS that they were eligible to make an appointment to be vaccinated.
Stephen Mansfield, the director of health for the Ledge Light Health District, said he could not comment on what happened at the school, but after becoming aware that it was happening, he reached out to the school.
Gaudreau said the school immediately sent an email to employees and all future appointments were canceled.
The school believes that about 11 people received the vaccine before they were notified of the error. Staff members were not expected to tell the school if they would get it.
“Just this morning, we are explaining to all our municipalities that if they are doing updates for timetables, for eligible participants to make sure they are eligible under 1A,” Mansfield said.
He adds, “DPH has also set up a mechanism, just yesterday morning we received a communication asking us to put a protection in place when we set up a public clinic to ensure that people who come to the clinic, eligible for the vaccine. ”
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School officials said they had been notified by health officials that employees who had already received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine would be able to receive the second.
Max Reiss, spokesman for Governor Ned Lamont, said it was a ‘minor communication error amid a historic, and largely, successful’ implementation ‘, an effort that’ has never been done before in human history ‘
Reiss said this rollout would not be perfect and that minor errors would occur.
Although he is not sure what caused the problem, Reiss said the governors’ office continues to work with the vaccine advisory group to determine processes and what partners are available to help the spread.
NBC Connecticut asked the CDC for comment and they said: ‘VAMS is an optional, web-based application that supports the planning and implementation of temporary, mobile or satellite COVID-19 vaccination clinics, as well as traditional medical practices that do not include existing IT systems. for the management of vaccination clinics; and they referred us back to the state. ”
Gaudreau said there is no malice or bad intent and they believe they are following protocols.
She sent this statement: ‘Throughout the pandemic, Williams School continued to teach in person because it was successful in following the protocols and guidelines of CDC and Ledge Light Health District. We have good partnerships with the Department of Public Health, the Department of Education, and the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools to support everyone’s safety and well-being, and we look forward to continuing to do so. ”
The Williams School shared the content of the email they received according to VAMS / CDC on December 24, 2020:
Your organization has been identified by your state as a critical infrastructure group. This means that your employees are eligible for a COVID-19 vaccination. To receive your COVID-19 vaccine, you must first set up an account for your organization using the link below. After you have logged in and registered an account, you can upload your employee roster in the VAMS (Vaccins Administration Management System) portal. Using the employee list, we will contact each employee to register and plan their vaccination appointments.
Thank you,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention