New York science teacher arrested after giving a 17-year-old boy an apparent COVID-19 vaccine at her house, police say

• Long Island police arrested a teacher accused of giving an unauthorized vaccine to a teenage boy.
• Biology teacher Laura Russo could face four years in prison if convicted.

A Long Island science teacher was arrested and accused of giving a 17-year-old boy an unauthorized vaccine in her home, police said.

Laura Parker Russo, who teaches biology at Herricks High School in Searingtown, was charged with unauthorized practice of a profession and faces four years in prison if convicted, the BBC reported.

She was arrested on New Year's Eve, Nassau County police said in a Monday statement.

Russo, who is not a registered medical professional, injected the boy with what appears to be a COVID-19 vaccine in her Sea Cliff home, police said.

The teen, who was not named, later went home and told his mother that he had been vaccinated, the police said. The mother then notified police and said she had not authorized the vaccination.

A video of the incident, posted to Twitter by NBC New York's Pei-Sze Cheng, appeared to show Russo in her house preparing to administer the jab as someone says: "There you go. At-home vaccine."

—Pei-Sze Cheng (@PeiSzeCheng4NY) January 3, 2022

It is unclear where Russo obtained the vaccine, the police statement said. NBC New York reported that it was a Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.

The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is currently the only one authorized for people under 18 in the US.

Herricks Public School officials told NBC New York in a statement: "The individual in question is a district employee who has been removed from the classroom and reassigned pending the outcome of the investigation."

Russo was released from jail and is scheduled to make her first court appearance on January 21, police said.