Thomas Breen photo
Mayor Justin Elicker on Thursday.
Nearly three months after Mayor Justin Elicker first announced that hundreds of vaccine doses had been mishandled by the Health Department, the city is almost done investigating what went wrong — and who’s to blame.
Elicker offered that update Thursday afternoon during an unrelated press conference on the Green, at which he endorsed city Health Director Maritza Bond’s campaign for secretary of the state.
The mayor was asked about the latest with the city’s months-long investigation into a “temperature excursion” incident at the city Health Department that led to 656 doses of the Pfizer vaccine being rendered potentially less effective at warding off Covid-19. Those potentially less effective vaccine doses were then administered to 625 different individuals between Dec. 23 and Feb. 7 at the city’s 54 Meadow St. clinic.
Elicker and Bond first announced that the problem had taken place — and that the city would conduct an internal investigation — during two press conferences in mid-February.
So, months later, what’s the latest?
“It’s close to being complete,” Elicker said about the investigation. “We have an outside agency, New Light Investigations, that has been conducting the review. It should be complete quite soon.”
When exactly might that be?
“Quite soon,” the mayor repeated.
Click here to read a follow up letter sent by the state’s vaccine preventable disease coordinator to the city health department about the findings from their Covid-19 Vaccine Program (CoVP) Compliance Visit on Feb. 17.
And who is going to be sacrificed on the alter of political expediency, for sure it won't be the health director.