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Covid vaccine rollout starts with confusion, other snags
- States are responsible for figuring out who gets the vaccine when, and in some places, those details still aren’t clear. The IndyStar reported yesterday that seniors in Indiana who don’t live in nursing homes are unsure where they fall in the state’s vaccine rollout. A USA Today analysis found that Indiana has used about a third of its available doses.
- University of Chicago Medicine offered vaccines meant for health care workers to thousands of employees who work from home or off-site, where they’re unlikely to be exposed to covid patients. Jason M. Goldman, a Florida doctor who served on a committee that recommended guidelines for covid vaccine distribution, told the Chicago Tribune that some recipients, including hospital administrators, haven’t “fit the strict criteria” for this phase of the rollout.
- Some health care workers at the front of the line are choosing not to get the vaccine. In Los Angeles County, an estimated 20 to 40% of frontline workers opted not to take it. Most nursing home workers in North Carolina are refusing to get the vaccine, according to the state health department.
Armored car company avoids collision with safety enforcement
- Some of the best investigative reporting I read last year came from Tampa Bay Times reporter Bethany Barnes, who wrote a three-part series on the armored truck company GardaWorld. Her first piece exposed a work culture at Garda where safety concerns were ignored, sometimes with fatal consequences. Since 2008, about 20 people have died in crashes involving Garda’s trucks.
- Since the Times’ first report in March, three more people have died in crashes involving GardaWorld’s trucks. Last week, Barnes reported that the US Department of Transportation was aware of issues with GardaWorld and had investigated complaints against the company without interviewing workers or taking any enforcement action.
- Last month, attorneys representing GardaWorld subpoenaed Barnes for records of her communication with a source, a former Garda employee who the company sued in 2017. The subpoena is part of that lawsuit.
- GardaWorld is based in Boca Raton, Florida but operates around the country and world. A lawsuit filed in South Carolina alleges that Garda had fallen short of multiple safety standards before one of its trucks was involved in a fatal crash in September. According to the suit, Garda’s driver had a suspended license and no commercial driver’s license, and the truck had mechanical issues.
New from Big If True
A long-awaited covid-19 relief package extends a federal eviction ban through January, but renters could owe up to $24 billion to their landlords, the analysis firm Stout estimates. Reporter Jeremy Martin wrote here about the ban and how some federal money for rental assistance remains unspent.
Jeremy’s story is part of our monthly, in-depth reporting series that we started in September. Last month, I asked for your help to support our reporting costs for three of these stories in 2021.
I’m happy to share that thanks to Big If True’s readers, our reporting expenses are covered through May! I’m looking forward to bringing you more independent, longform journalism in the public interest this year.
If you like what we do and haven’t given yet, I hope you’ll consider supporting Big If True. Even a small gift will help us keep doing what we’re doing.
– Mollie Bryant
Founder and editor, Big If True