SC expands pool of people authorized to administer COVID-19 vaccine
Medical students, retired or inactive nurses and unlicensed medical assistants may now administer the COVID-19 vaccine, state health officials said.
The state Department of Health and Environmental Control and the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation announced Thursday that they had expanded the number of medical professionals authorized to administer doses of the coronavirus vaccine to ensure the state had enough trained medical professionals to give doses in the coming months.
“This joint order proactively puts us in a position to have an increased number of people who can administer vaccine when the vaccine is more widely available to everyone,” DHEC acting director Marshall Taylor said in a statement.
The order authorizes medical school students with documented training, nurses who are retired, inactive or whose licenses have lapsed within the past five years and unlicensed medical personnel with current board certification from one of five national health care associations and training in intramuscular injection to administer the COVID-19 vaccine.
Officials could not immediately say how many South Carolinians fall into each category.
Previously, only practicing nurses, physicians, physician assistants, pharmacists, pharmacy interns, pharmacy technicians and certain unlicensed medical assistants had been authorized to administer the COVID-19 vaccine, LLR spokeswoman Lesia Kudelka said.
Neither DHEC nor LLR could immediately provide how many such credentialed individuals there were in the state.
All those newly qualified to administer the COVID-19 vaccine must enroll in and complete a federal program before beginning to deliver shots.
The move to expand the pool of people authorized to administer the vaccine comes as state lawmakers this week introduced companion bills in the House and Senate to direct DHEC to temporarily authorize certain health care workers to administer the vaccine “regardless of whether the health care workers are otherwise prohibited from doing so under any professional scope of practice or unauthorized practice provision of law.”
Citing South Carolina’s “unacceptably low vaccination rates,” the resolution calls on DHEC to suspend certain regulations that “prohibit many qualified health care workers” from administering the vaccine.
The joint resolution directs that advance practice registered nurses, physician assistants and registered nurses in good standing may delegate COVID-19 vaccine administration to certified medical assistants and retired or inactive health care workers under their supervision.
Renwick said the number of people authorized to administer vaccinations has not been an impediment to the state’s vaccine rollout, but rather that the lack of available vaccine doses have been the problem.
“We have ample vaccine providers at this time; that’s why not all those who are enrolled are activated right now,” she said. “However, this Order will have more people eligible to enroll in the federal program to become a COVID vaccinator, ahead of when there is enough vaccine for everyone and supply outweighs demand.”
South Carolina currently ranks dead last among states in its per capita rate of COVID-19 vaccines received and 48th in its per capita rate of COVID-19 vaccines administered, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The State has inquired with DHEC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services about the rate of vaccination distribution to South Carolina and is awaiting a response.
Renwick did, however, dispute the CDC’s data and said it appeared the agency was not using the correct or full data to make their calculation.
As of Thursday, South Carolina had received 313,100 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and administered 121,819 of those doses, according to DHEC.