Lee demurred when asked when or if Shelby County would get authority to oversee the vaccine distribution. Meanwhile, the physical management of the vaccine will now be handled by hospital partners. Instead, Memphis city officials, hospitals, clinics and other pharmacies throughout the county will handle the distribution. “I have made it my responsibility, and it is my responsibility, to be accountable for what has occurred,” she said during Wednesday’s news conference.Īs a result of the wasted vaccines, Shelby County’s local health department will no longer be allowed to allocate the vaccine - a rare move by the state that has stressed the importance of local involvement in the vaccine rollout. Bruce Randolph, the Shelby County Health Department’s chief health officer, said officials “regret deeply” that vaccines were wasted. 19, when the state began its investigation after her public statements about the wasted vaccines.ĭr. Haushalter said she did not hear back from the state until Feb. 13, but she was unable to speak with anyone and left a message. Haushalter said she called a state health official to discuss the wasted vaccines on Feb. Complaints about appointment availability also have emerged. Those who missed their appointments were allowed to reschedule. On at least one instance, people with appointments were turned away from vaccination sites after delays forced them to wait for hours for their shot. Problems with vaccine distribution had already arisen in Shelby County before disclosure of the wasted doses. “Stockpiling for a later phase is not authorized, and this action unnecessarily prohibited high-risk elderly individuals from receiving their fair share of this limited and life-saving resource,” she said. In a statement issued late Wednesday, Piercey said she had learned that some vaccines were withheld over the course of several weeks, which she called a “significant violation.” Shelby County’s health department plans to use tens of thousands of viable surplus doses this week. Piercey also said she was unsure how the county built up nearly 30,000 excessive vaccine doses in their inventory. Roughly two-thirds of that amount occurred before last week’s storms, which caused several states to face delays in giving out vaccinations. Piercey said the 2,400 wasted doses occurred over seven incidents. Bill Lee told reporters Wednesday that officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are expected to be on the ground soon to launch their own investigation. State investigators came to Memphis to look into the wasted vaccines, and Gov. 3 ranged from multiple incidents of spoiled doses, an excessive vaccine inventory, insufficient record-keeping and a lack of a formal process for managing soon-to-expire vaccines. Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey revealed Tuesday that the problems were far more widespread. The finding came after the Tennessee Department of Health launched an investigation over the weekend into Haushalter’s initial report that the winter storms caused the 1,315 doses to be tossed. In all, more than 2,400 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in Shelby County went to waste over the past month while local officials sat on tens of thousands of shots that state officials thought had already gone into arms, the state’s health commissioner announced Tuesday. But she made no mention of doses that expired before the winter storm struck. That day, she said about 1,315 vaccine doses had expired and were thrown out amid the bad weather.

Haushalter did not publicly disclose that any vaccine doses had been wasted until Feb.

Alisa haushalter