The Walz administration’s roll out of a COVID-19 vaccine availability tracking website crashed on its first day. Minnesota senior citizens are still confused as to where to go to get vaccine injections. Now, the Department of Health wants to improve their ability to target Minnesotans by asking irrelevant and invasive questions.

Sen. Karin Housley (R-Stillwater), pictured at left, chaired a meeting of the Senate Aging and Long-Term Care Policy Committee on February 24 to ask Department of Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm about those questions. As reported by AlphaNews, a state-issued vaccine sign-up form asks such questions as “employer, job title, race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, first language, physical and emotional condition, and type of residence”, all before requesting age.

Sen. Carrie Ruud (R-Breezy Point) asked, “Why do you need to know the gender and sexual preferences of seniors to give them a vaccine?” Housley also pointed out that the form requires the user to agree that the information they provide may become public data.

Malcolm claimed that the Department of Health has made “tremendous strides in immunizing in long-term care settings and now in community settings.” Sen. Housley replied that “the program has been chaotic and ever-changing from the beginning.”