The coronavirus vaccine rollout avoided onerous eligibility checks to make sure shots were going in arms. But that left the system prone to inequalities.
New Standard had early access to the vaccines because it was a CVS COVID vaccine distribution partner, part of a program set up to ensure that the vulnerable residents of long-term care facilities and front-line health care staff had priority access to a vaccine. Pharmacies and state and federal health agencies were avoiding onerous eligibility checks to make sure shots were going in arms. But the honor system left the vaccine rollout prone to inequitable distribution.
That same day, she texted administrative employees to ask, “Did you talk to your families about coming in as employees to get the vaccine?” In a follow-up message, she instructed one employee to “list your husband as an employee.” New Standard Senior Living owns and operates three assisted living facilities for low-income seniors in New Jersey. Its chair and president,Noble Senior Services, a troubled elder care provider with operations across the South and Midwest that have racked up a string of alarming safety violations.in June found that one of the country’s largest owners of senior housing, CareTrust, had chosen Noble to take over care for hundreds of seniors despite knowing about Noble’s checkered safety record.
“We constitutionally feel we tried our best to help humanity fight a deadly pandemic and we negate the allegations as either malicious and or unfounded,” he wrote in an email. “We felt honored to assist the state with all our ability to help quell the horrific pandemic which claimed so many lives. We are quite proud to have helped as many people as we could.”
As for anyone else who attended the company’s vaccination clinics, “I am neither aware of the classification of all the invitees nor their origination,” Barile said, but in general, he called HuffPost’s description of the crowd “inaccurate and spurious.”