Boise won’t share which employees it approved for early vaccines — but the mayor got one
The city of Boise has declared a number of its employees eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations as essential employees, but it isn’t saying how many.
Some employees have gotten letters on letterhead from the office of Mayor Lauren McLean telling them that because they are front-line workers whose “work-related duties must be performed onsite and involve being in close proximity ... to the public or coworkers,” they are eligible to get vaccinated.
Being an essential worker allows people to get the vaccine ahead of the general population, as determined by Gov. Brad Little’s COVID-19 vaccine advisory committee and approved by Little. The first few rounds of vaccinations are reserved primarily for the people who most need them — health care providers, workers tasked with maintaining public health who can’t telecommute, those living in long-term care facilities, and people 65 years old or older.
In the city of Boise, it’s not clear exactly how many of those people have gotten vaccinated after getting letters from the mayor’s office, however — or even how many got them.
McLean herself has been vaccinated “as I execute daily on my duties here at City Hall,” she wrote in an email Thursday.
Seth Ogilvie, her spokesperson, said she was “offered the vaccine under the same guidelines as the governor and other government leaders who provide essential services.”
McLean likens her vaccination to Little’s
Christine Myron, spokesperson with Central District Health, said Wednesday that the district has not made any recommendations to include most elected officials in vaccine priority groups. She said the district directed that judges be included with first responders in Group 2.1, but otherwise the district follows the governor’s plan for prioritization, which also does not list elected officials.
In an email sent through her spokesperson, McLean compared her vaccination with Little’s and those received by other officials around the country.
“It’s important for our leaders to model that the vaccine is both safe and effective, and that every vaccination is a step back towards prepandemic life,” she wrote. “I’m still masking, still maintaining physical distance, and still believing every day in the resiliency of Boise.”
Ogilvie told the Statesman on Tuesday that because of HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that protects people’s private medical information, he could not share the number of city employees vaccinated or even how many employees had been told they were eligible for vaccinations. The city has about 2,000 employees.
HIPAA is intended to prevent doctors and others with access to your personal health data from releasing information without your permission. Many legal experts, however, believe that it does not prevent government agencies from disclosing “documents made public by state open records laws,” according to an analysis from Al-Amyn Sumar, lawyer for The New York Times, published in legal news service Law360.
Boise City Council member vaccinated because of his job
Some city officials have been able to get vaccinations through other means. Boise Council Member Jimmy Hallyburton was vaccinated through his work with the Boise Bicycle Project, of which he is the executive director.
The nonprofit’s employees were considered to be part of the vaccine committee’s Group 2.1, he told the Statesman. That group includes people who provide social services such as housing and food, correctional facility staff, and teachers. It is ahead of adults 65 years old and older (members of Group 2.2), agricultural workers, U.S. Postal Service employees and certain gas, electric and water utility workers (all Group 2.3).
He said the Boise Bicycle Project was considered a community relief organization because it continues to work with refugees and people who are homeless “in person on a regular basis.”
People who live in homeless shelters are in Group 2.3, according to the most recent vaccine prioritization released from the state. Refugees do not appear on the list.
That means Hallyburton — and any city employees who have been vaccinated — is among the 196,000 people who have gotten at least one dose of a vaccine as of Thursday morning, according to the state’s vaccine portal. That’s about 10.9% of the state’s entire population. Many more people want vaccinations but are unable to get them.
Hallyburton said he had gotten frustrated calls from people who had tried but failed to get an appointment for a vaccine.
“The backlash was ‘how dare you get a vaccination in front of other people who are older than you,’” he said. “There is some real frustration and anger toward other people, which is unfortunate, because with these vaccines, every single time someone gets one, there’s more light at the end of the tunnel for all of us.”
Hallyburton gets his second dose this weekend, he said.
Meridian council member didn’t get vaccination after all
It originally appeared as if elected officials could be able to be vaccinated simply because they were elected officials. Luke Cavener, a member of the Meridian City Council, tweeted last month that he would be able to be vaccinated as soon as Feb. 8 as a city employee.
Shandy Lam, a spokesperson for the city of Meridian, told the Statesman that council members were not eligible for vaccinations unless they were at least 65 years old.
“In fact, none of our employees are being scheduled at this time as the priority has shifted” to those 65 and older, she wrote in an email Wednesday.
Cavener said Wednesday that he had not received a vaccination.
Hallyburton said that if he wasn’t with Boise Bicycle Project and was instead just looking to get vaccinated as a city official, he would be in the same group as the general population.
“In the next few weeks, they’re going to give some clarity on who falls into the next group,” he said. “I’m not sure if public officials will end up being any higher on that list or not.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 11:14 AM.
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