REVEALED: $30k-a-year Connecticut private school vaccinated 11 staff members before healthcare workers and the elderly after the CDC 'accidentally' put them on COVID 'critical' list
Mark Fader, the head of the Williams School said the school then followed protocols and provided a roster of Williams employees to the Vaccine Administration Management System
A top Connecticut private school was given COVID-19 vaccines weeks ahead of time after officials said they were mistakenly put on the CDC's critical infrastructure list.
The Williams School in New London, where fees are $30,000 a year, was wrongly classified by the state as eligible for the first round of vaccine doses.
That meant 11 employees received the jab meant only for health care workers and those in nursing homes. A source with knowledge of the school told DailyMail.com: 'It's not surprising to be honest.'
Stephen Mansfield, director of the local health department, told The Day of New London: 'The breakdown occurred where someone entered individuals into the system who weren’t eligible.
'It was an honest mistake. (The school) was very apologetic. We do our best to communicate to our partners what the eligibility requirements are, but it isn’t always crystal clear.'
Mark Fader, the head of the Williams School, told The Day of New London he was notified late last month by the CDC that his school had been classified by the state as part of a 'critical infrastructure group'.
Fader said the school then followed protocols and provided a roster of Williams employees to the Vaccine Administration Management System, allowing the school's 53 employees to get on vaccination rolls.
Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Wednesday urged states to ramp up vaccinations by moving quickly through priority lists.
The White House COVID-19 task force is debating telling governors to abandon their rollout plans and hand out shots to anyone in a bid to vaccinate as many as possible.
It comes as the US has now vaccinated just 5 million Americans despite having distributed 17 million doses across the country in the last three weeks. Only one third of initial vaccine supplies have been used up nationwide and 1.5 percent of the population has been vaccinated.
The Williams School in New London, where fees are $30,000 a year, was wrongly classified by the state as eligible for the first round of vaccine doses
The Williams School staff are pictured. Head of school Fader is front and center in a tie. 11 employees received the jab meant only for health care workers and those in nursing homes. A source told DailyMail.com: 'It's not surprising to be honest'
The local health district contacted the Williams school on December 29 to tell officials that the initial notification had been a mistake.
It is understood the mistake was only spotted after a health worker mentioned a number of the teaching staff had shown up at a clinic for the shots.
Fader said the school immediately advised employees of the error and advised them to cancel any vaccination appointments.
He said 11 staff members already had been vaccinated. Those employees will be allowed to get the second dose of the two-dose vaccination regimen, he said.
FLORIDA: People with appointments are pictured above in Florida's Hillsborough County lining up in their cars to be vaccinated at one of the county's four vaccine distribution sites
CALIFORNIA: Healthcare workers who scheduled appointments online wait to receive the vaccine at the LA Fire Department in Los Angeles on Tuesday
NEW YORK: People line up at Nassau County's first COVID-19 vaccination distribution site, set up by Northwell Health and Nassau County on Tuesday
Maura Fitzgerald, a spokesperson for the state Department of Public Health, said there have been very few cases of people receiving the vaccine 'out of phase.'
The governor's office said 'This is the largest vaccine rollout in human history and there are just going to be mistakes.'
In Connecticut the state is close to finishing up the first vaccinations for frontline health care workers and nursing home residents and staff under Phase 1. State officials reported more than 2,300 new confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19 since Monday. Also, there were 24 new COVID-associated deaths, for a total of 6,192.
On Tuesday it was revealed real estate moguls Bill and David S. Mack were said to have arranged for their rich friends to receive COVID-19 vaccines at a Florida retirement home chaired by David.
Some of those getting the jab had reportedly flown down on private jets from Manhattan after their shot was arranged by the millionaire brothers at the Joseph L. Morse Health Center in Palm Beach.
Front line workers are vaccinated at Backus Hospital where 211 doses of the Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine were delivered and being given to 30 hospital workers on the first day of vaccinations in Norwich, Connecticut on December 15
Others who received the vaccine are said to be members of the exclusive Palm Beach Country Club, where it costs at least $100,000 to join.
A Mack spokesman confirmed they have been helping administer the jab, adding: 'David and Bill Mack were asked to assist a not-for-profit healthcare institution with the organization of its vaccination campaign.'
But the rep insisted while 'some' of those getting the jab 'may have been Palm Beach Country Club members' it was 'not a targeted effort to vaccinate club members'.
They added: 'Everything was done in accordance with Governor DeSantis’s order as it relates to persons 65 and older.'
Surgeon General Jerome Adams has partly blamed states for the slower than expected rollout and called on governors - who are in charge of prioritizing who gets the shots first - to move on to the next priority groups to keep up with demand. He is pictured in a GMA interview on Wednesday
Amid mounting frustration over the slow vaccine rollout in the US, it has emerged that West Virginia managed to give its all of its 28,000 nursing home residents and staff their first dose of the vaccine by the end of December.
The state opted out of the federal nursing home program, which would ensure doses delivered directly to those care facilities via CVS and Walgreens.
Instead, the state and West Virginia Board of Pharmacy partnered with local independent pharmacies to vaccinate nursing home residents.
CVS and Walgreens said on Wednesday they expect to complete administering the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines at nursing homes across the country by January 25.
Elsewhere, governors and other politicians are talking tough and in some cases proposing to bend the rules to get people vaccinated more quickly.
New York Gov Andrew Cuomo has threatened to fine hospitals that don't use their vaccine allotments fast enough. He had previously threatened health care providers with a $1 million fine if they are caught fraudulently obtaining and giving out the vaccine.
In New York City, where Mayor Bill de Blasio and Cuomo have sparred over slow vaccine distribution, officials said on Wednesday the city was ramping up its "vaccine hubs", which would include 15 locations by January 16, five "mega sites" among them.
The sites will have the capacity to vaccinate 100,000 New Yorkers a week.
Gov Henry McMaster of South Carolina said hospitals and health workers have until January 15 to get a shot or they will have to 'move to the back of the line'. The state has given out less than half its initial allotment of the Pfizer vaccine to about 61,000 people.
In North Carolina, Gov Roy Cooper has called in the National Guard to 'provide support to local health providers' to more quickly distribute vaccines. North Carolina has used just 24 percent of its 498,000 allocation.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan also announced that, beginning on Wednesday, the emergency support teams from the state's National Guard will lend a hand to local health departments in their vaccination efforts.
'At the current pace of allocation,' Hogan said, the state expects to be able to start vaccinating the 1b priority group - people age 75 and older and frontline essential workers - by late January.
In California, where just over 1 percent of the population has been vaccinated, Gov Gavin Newsom said he wants to give providers the flexibility to dispense shots to people not on the priority list if doses are in danger of going to waste.
In Florida, where officials have put senior citizens ahead of many essential workers for getting the vaccine, the elderly have been lining up by the thousands this week in order to get vaccinated. Florida has used up 25 percent of its vaccine doses with 1.3 percent of residents having received the shots.
Currently, there is no statewide residency requirements in Florida in order to receive the vaccination. It has prompted outrage from some locals who claim snowbirds - those who migrate from the North during winter - are taking up their allocations.