Teacher Arrested For Allegedly Injecting Teen With COVID-19 Vaccine

New York teacher arrested for injecting a student with a COVID-19 vaccine in her home

A high school teacher from Long Island, New York has been arrested for allegedly giving a 17-year-old boy a COVID-19 vaccine at her home. Yes, you read that correctly. A school teacher, somehow, allegedly acquired a COVID-19 vaccine and injected it into a child’s arm…at her home.

Per CBS New York, the teacher — identified by Nassau County police as Laura Parker Russo — is a 54-year-old biology teacher, who reportedly gave the teen the vaccine on December 31, 2021 in her home. The boy told his mother and Russo was arrested and charged with New York State Education Law Unauthorized Practice of a Profession.

I have so many questions: First off, how did she GET the vaccine? Was it even a Pfizer vaccine, the only FDA-approved vaccine for use in minors? But also **whispers** why didn’t this 17-year-old kid just get vaccinated at a pharmacy over the summer like everyone else??

“The mother had not given permission or authority to have her son injected with a Covid vaccine,” the police department said (via NBC News).

A social media video of the student getting the vaccine has surfaced online. A man’s voice in the video is heard saying, “there you go, at home vaccine.” I wonder if the student’s parents wouldn’t let him get vaccinated, so he felt this was his only option?

That being said, police said that Russo did NOT have a background as a nurse or a health professional and is not authorized to administer vaccines.

Russo is set to appear in court on January 21, 2021. The New York Times reports that the school website (which has since been taken down) lists her as a science teacher at Herricks Public Schools in New Hyde Park. According to a statement from the district, she “has been removed from the classroom and reassigned pending the outcome of the investigation.”

Widespread vaccination is the key to getting the pandemic under control but unauthorized injections at your teacher’s house is not the way to do it.