The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) COVID-19 vaccination initiative swiftly identified employees in vaccination priority groups, but provided minimal guidance to components, says a new report from the Office of Inspector General (OIG).
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) a pandemic due to the rapid spread and severity of the disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collaborated with other Federal agencies to develop and implement a national vaccination program. This set out recommendations for determining population groups for initial COVID-19 vaccination distribution. Recommendations included placing health care personnel in vaccination priority group 1a, and placing non-health care, frontline, essential workers, such as those in law enforcement and national security roles, in priority group 1b.
DHS headquarters and some of its components employ first responder health care personnel and frontline essential workers, including those responsible for law enforcement and national security missions. For example, United States Coast Guard Office of Health Services and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Health Service Corps employ health care personnel such as nurses and doctors, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and United States Secret Service employ frontline essential employees in the law enforcement field such as Border Patrol agents and special agents.
Through its Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first COVID-19 vaccine on December 11, 2020. Prior to the EUA, DHS anticipated the need to coordinate vaccinations for some employees. To prepare for vaccinating these employees against COVID-19, DHS asked its components to use the CDC recommendations to determine which employees to place in priority groups 1a and 1b. DHS did not directly receive an allocation of vaccine inventory for its employees. DHS partnered with the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), which has an established healthcare infrastructure, to make the vaccine available to DHS personnel in priority groups 1a and 1b.
OIG found that DHS acted swiftly to identify employees in vaccination priority groups, but did not rely on its existing policies and provided minimal guidance to components, resulting in inconsistent responses across the Department as to which types of employees were deemed eligible. DHS expected components to use their discretion to determine employee eligibility because they best understand their unique missions and needs. As a result, the component responses varied as to which job series were considered eligible for placement in priority groups. During its review, OIG heard from a vaccination initiative staff member who stated that too many employees were in the priority groups and noted it was because no one in DHS wanted to say no to including employees.
According to OIG, DHS only partially committed staff resources and delayed establishing a comprehensive, full-time task force to manage the effort. Between October and December 2020, DHS employee vaccination efforts relied primarily on DHS headquarters and Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office employees. Realizing the need to accelerate the vaccination program, DHS engaged FEMA to recruit and activate a full-time team to ensure success of ensuing vaccination efforts. On January 25, 2021, then-Acting DHS Secretary, David Pekoske, introduced a new vaccination task force, Operation Vaccinate Our Workforce (VOW). Operation VOW staff told OIG that the vaccine initiative was a dynamic situation, with one noting “there appeared to be no plan” and stating “DHS was flying the airplane and building it at the same time.” While the pandemic was obviously a dynamic situation, OIG says DHS may avoid delays in future by developing emergency response protocols including guidelines for establishing and staffing…
Read More: OIG Finds Swift Action But Minimal Guidance in DHS Workforce Vaccination Initiative
