House leader says to deprioritize elected officials in Pennsylvania vaccination plan

(The Center Square) – House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte, told Pennsylvania health officials to move him and other lawmakers to the back of the COVID-19 vaccination line.

In a letter sent Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine on Monday, Benninghoff said that elected officials should place the well-being of their constituents above themselves. Besides, he said, guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t include government workers in the same category as high risk populations with co-morbidities and other preexisting conditions – but the Pennsylvania plan does.

“[T]he state plan goes beyond the CDC recommendation to allow state elected officials and administration cabinet officials to receive the COVID-19 vaccination at the same time as those who may be at-risk and before the general public,” he said. “In my eyes, that is simply not acceptable.”

So far, Pennsylvania has received more than 827,000 of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines since rollout began last month. Officials have administered more than 243,000 of those doses – mostly in health care workers and residents of skilled nursing facilities.

The next population on the state’s immunization schedule includes residents aged 75 and older as well as other groups of essential workers, referred to as Phase 1B. Government officials will follow in the third wave, 1C, that includes adults with preexisting conditions and workers in industries not targeted by Phase 1B.

“We anticipate moving statewide into vaccinations for people in 1B soon,” Levine told reporters Monday.

Benninghoff said considering the constrained nature of vaccine supply as a result of rationing from Operation Warp Speed, he believes the state should remove lawmakers and officials, both elected and appointed, from Phase 1C – unless they fit one of the other prioritized groups.

“We should not be advanced in line to receive this life-saving vaccine at a time when supplies remain limited,” he said. “Regardless of supply, we should not be advanced before the general public and certainly should not be able to receive this vaccine at the same time as at-risk populations.”

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