CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) --The Indiana Department of Health is refusing to give COVID vaccine supply to some clinics after they gave shots to people who are not yet eligible.
The issue was addressed during the state's weekly COVID briefing.
"We are not trying to be the vaccine police," Indiana State Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box. "That is the last thing we want to be. We are trying to ensure that we have ethical and equitable access to the vaccine across all 92 counties.
“We feel strongly we have made these eligibility decisions in a very good evidence-based manner in order to save lives and prevent hospitalizations and we will stand by that."
She said ISDH is however policing vaccine clinics and some are not following the rules.
Indiana's Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box said ISDH had been made aware of some instances in which clinics have ignored guidelines and hosted special clinics for ineligible individuals.
"We have told the clinics we will not provide them with any additional first dose vaccines at this time. We will, however, provide enough doses to be able to cover the second doses for the individuals who were vaccinated. And we will work with them to develop a corrective plan of action," Dr. Box said.
It is unclear how many clinics have been involved, but Dr. Box said the cases were rare when individuals have gone way outside the guidelines.
"There have been rare instances I would say where individuals have really gone way outside the guidelines and that is a situation where we ask - where we basically say they would no longer receive first doses from us, but they would receive the second doses to finish up anyone they had vaccinated," Dr. Box said.
“We will reallocate the doses initially intended for these clinics to other sites within the county so the county’s total allocation is not negatively impacted."
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Only Hoosiers 60 and older, as well as first responders and health care workers, are able to sign up for a COVID-19 vaccine.
Dr. Box said ISDH is working to reeducate clinics that are not following the rules.
ISDH has also communicated with all vaccine clinics about the importance of having standby lists that include eligible people, or those who would next in line in the state's age-based prioritization, as well as those who fall into one of the CDC’s categories of people who are at higher risk because of specific conditions.
“Those lists should be used for any extra doses at the end of the day. Many local health departments have thousands of people on their standby lists at this time,” said an ISDH spokesperson.