Biden Administration Implements New Vaccine Rollout Strategy
The Biden Administration recently announced it would directly provide retail pharmacies around the U.S. a minute number of Covid-19 vaccine doses.
While many pharmacies have already been giving out the vaccines given to them, the new federal program will ship those doses right to the pharmacies. The goal is to broaden access to the community. The new initiative is not the same as the federal program with CVS and Walgreens that are currently vaccinating long-term care facility residents and staff.
The government said it would send out one million doses every week to nearly 6,500 pharmacies via the program. The vaccine is being sent out, beginning next week with weekly shipments every week, totaling 10.5 million doses to date.
The White House said the federal vaccination partnership would begin Feb. 11.
The CDC is choosing pharmacies for its first phase that are in difficult to reach areas to make sure doses are equally distributed. CVS Health is planning to provide the vaccines to qualified populations when the federal government implements its program. Walgreens will start using the federal doses on Feb. 12
The program’s first weeks will be a dry run to see if the federal pharmacy program is working and if any changes need to be made. Nearly 40,000 pharmacies around the nation will be providing the COVID-19 vaccines.
This approach is being taken cautiously as the Biden administration tries to increase the vaccine’s distribution speed. They are also trying to find out how many doses states have sitting unused while getting manufacturers to increase the supply and looking at options for federally-run mass vaccination sites.
The administration said states would be completely reimbursed for services and resources provided or bought – gloves, masks, use of National Guard, etc. The cost is expected to be nearly $5 billion.
Based on data from the CDC, the federal government has shipped roughly 50 million Covid-19 vaccine doses, with over 26 million people getting their first dose and six million getting the second dose.
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