Records request related to COVID-19 vaccine doses

Rachana Pradhan filed this request with the Department of Health of South Dakota.

It is a clone of this request.

Submitted Jan. 29, 2021
Status
Completed

Communications

From: Rachana Pradhan

Subject: South Dakota Open Records Law Request: Records request related to COVID-19 vaccine doses

Email


To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the South Dakota Open Records Law, I hereby request the following records:

(1) any and all data on the number of wasted, spoiled or expired COVID-19 vaccine doses from 12/11/2020 to 01/26/2021 and (2) any and all data on the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered from 12/11/2020 to 01/26/2021.

Please note that I am a member of the news media as evidenced by my published work for Kaiser Health News at www.khn.org and this request is being made for news gathering purposes. Any questions should be routed to myself via email or by phone at 703-731-7918.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Rachana Pradhan

From: Department of Health

Subject: RE: Partial Open Records Denial - Number of Wasted COVID vaccines

Email

February 4, 2021

Rachana Pradhan
MuckRock News
requests@muckrock.com<mailto:requests@muckrock.com>
-SENT VIA EMAIL ONLY-

Re: Records Request

Dear Ms. Pradhan:

I am writing in response to your email and letter dated January 29, 2021, requesting data on the number of COVID vaccines the South Dakota Department of Health has administered. The authority for disclosing public records is the South Dakota Open Records law, SDCL §§ 1-27-1 to 1-27-45.

You can find information about the total number of doses administered and the number of persons administered a vaccine on our South Dakota Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard, located here: https://doh.sd.gov/COVID/Dashboard.aspx?. The data on vaccines is under a tab on the right side of the dashboard. As of the date of this letter, 101,048 doses have been administered to 71,362 people.

South Dakota's Open Records Law authorizes the public to examine public records, unless those records are declared confidential by law or exempt from disclosure. SDCL §§ 1-27-1, 1-27-3, 1-27-1.5 to 1-27-1.9. The exact number of doses gone to waste is information pertaining to the protection of the public, specifically our emergency management response. It is also emergency or disease response plans and lists of emergency or disaster response material. This information is exempt from disclosure pursuant to SDCL § 1-27-1.5(8) and 1-27-1.5(17) Therefore, the exact number of doses gone to waste cannot be made available to you. However, I can generally disclose at the time of this letter the number is less than 25 total.

If you have any questions regarding this matter, please feel free to contact me. The appeals procedure for an open records denial can be found at SDCL §§ 1-27-38 to 1-27-43.

Sincerely,
[cid:image003.jpg@01D6FB02.B0056BE0]
Justin L. Williams
Legal Counsel
South Dakota Department of Health

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