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You may say, well, so what? At least the doses are being used. That's true, but hospitals, especially, are well positioned to vaccinate high-risk groups (their patients!) and many have interpreted "frontline staff" very liberally. 2/x

As a member of the CDC advisory board said to me, they the recommendations were never intended to include administrators or grad students who never come into contact with patients. 3/x

When the hospitals, "custodians" of the state's vaccine supply, were done vaccinating their frontline staff, they could have contacted their state departments of health instead of rolling out to employees who never see patients. 4/x

In the 4 hours since this story has been up, I've received more than a dozen emails and DMs from people at other institutions who are seeing the same thing. The practice is rampant.

Allowing healthy young employees to cut in line ahead of people who really need the vaccine "is such a naked display of privilege," as one staffer told me. Thanks to all the sources whom I cannot name and to @SaskiaPopescu and @fadenethx nytimes.com/2021/01/10/hea…

I have mixed feelings here We need to get shots out Reasonable to vaccinate folks working in hospital lab But administrators? donors on boards? Their families? There is a better way Hospitals should use left-over doses for elderly, at-risk folks in their community 2/3

Hospitals are getting mixed messages Told to use their vaccines quickly (good) Told to not let any cut in line (appropriate) Told not to give it to non-hospital folks (ugh) Hospitals have doses left over (due to staff hesitancy) They are worried about not using it right 3/4

So states need to send a clear message Get vaccines out Obviously prioritize front-line workers But with left-overs, start vaccinating community members at high risk It doesn't have to be perfect But we can do a lot better than we are doing now Fin

‘The only reason that they have as much vaccine as they have was because they were custodians of vaccine — because they have cold storage,” the official said. “It wasn’t N.Y.U.’s vaccine to use for N.Y.U.” Can you comment on this, @nyulangone?