Bayside Covid-19 Vaccination Site Diluted Doses, Lawsuit Claims

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — A Bayside COVID-19 vaccine distribution site diluted doses beyond federal recommendations and overcounted shots given to maximize profits, contends a former employee who filed suit against the company this week.

Jamie Zheng accused Centers Urgent Care — a healthcare company that runs the distribution of vaccines at Bayside's Korean Community Services — of firing him after he discovered the alleged money-saving scheme, New York Supreme Court records show.

Zheng said executives urged employees to over-dilute Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doses to obtain at least seven doses per vial, in defiance of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, court records show.

"I have been instructed by supervisors to engage in activities in the workplace that creates a threat to public health and safety," wrote Zheng in an email addressed to a Centers Urgent Care top brass at the Bayside vaccination site cited in his lawsuit. "Particularly with the over dilution of Covid vaccine doses at our facility."

Centers Urgent Care leaders sought to cover up vaccine distribution practices in Bayside by, in part, terminating employees who raised concerns, the suit contends.

The lawsuit points to a similar complaint filed last year by Andrew Palazzo, a vaccine administrator working at Center Urgent Care's Bayside site, who says he was fired after raising concerns about the company's practices.

Reached for comment, Centers Urgent Care declined to answer questions about the lawsuit.

Last year, in response to Palazzo's lawsuit, Schenker denied any claims of over diluting and the Health Department said a random inspection didn't reveal any major issues, QNS reported.

During his time as a site manager at the Bayside vaccination site, when he was responsible for mixing COVID-19 vaccine doses, Zheng was repeatedly told to over dilute doses and lie about doing so if asked, according to court records.

Zheng was also instructed to over report the number of vaccines administered on a daily basis in order to ensure that Centers Urgent Care met its quota, on paper, and was delivered a greater number of vaccine doses, the suit contends.

When Zheng brought up the improper counting in a covert meeting with Centers Urgent Care CEO, Steve Orlanski, medical director, Dr. Josef Schenker, and the site's operations director — held across the street from KCS after CBS New York started investigating the site's vaccine practices — the CEO brushed him off, court records show.

"Now we are getting into things I don't want to hear about," Orlanski said, according to the lawsuit.

And, on at least one occasion, Zheng was told to say, if asked, that additional vaccine doses sent from a Manhattan facility were transported to Bayside in a specialized cooler, though they were in fact transported on a regular Pfizer tray, according to the lawsuit.

A week after Zheng sent the email expressing concerns about Center Urgent Care's vaccination practices in Bayside, he started receiving complaints made by other employees "similar" to the complaints leveled against Palazzo ahead of his termination, court documents show.

The director of operations had previously told Zheng that she "forced employees to file retroactive complaints against Palazzo," including allegations of sexual harassment, and manipulated the complaints at the behest of Centers Urgent Care, in order to terminate Palazzo after he started raising concerns about Center Urgent Care's vaccination practices in Bayside, the suit contends.

At the beginning of June, a couple of weeks after Zheng sent the email, Orlanski told him that he could no longer manage the site because of the complaints leveled against him and was transferred to assist a mobile vaccine site on June 9, according to the suit.

About a month later, Zheng was told he was being terminated because Centers Urgent Care was winding down its vaccine sites, court records show.

The lawsuit, however, contends that this reasoning is false (Centers Urgent Care still has vaccine sites open to date), instead claiming that Zheng was fired in retaliation for voicing concerns over the company's dilution practices, which violates New York's labor law against retaliatory firing.

Zheng is demanding that the case is tried before a jury, court documents show.

Editor's note: This lawsuit has been returned for correction. Records are returned for correction when the court clerk finds defects in e-filed documents, such as if different cases are inadvertently attached, or if the filing was made incorrectly, according to the New York Supreme Court website.