NEW YORK / LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Walmart Inc. is preparing to offer COVID-19 vaccines in seven more states, as well as in Chicago and Puerto Rico, this week and the next, a company spokeswoman told Reuters, expanding beyond the two states where its pharmacists are offering vaccines.
The move to the world’s largest retailer comes as US President Joe Biden is racing to accelerate a frustratingly slow vaccination campaign that has stranded about half of the 38 million shots in freezers.
This week and next, Walmart will begin supplying vaccines in Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, South Carolina and Texas, as well as in Chicago and Puerto Rico, the spokeswoman said. The photos will be available only to specific populations decided by each state and only in a handful of stores in each state.
Walmart is already vaccinating healthcare professionals in New Mexico and its home state, Arkansas.
Alabama health officer Scott Harris said on Thursday that the state would partner with Walmart to supply COVID-19 vaccines. Walmart confirmed the deal, which is part of a federal partnership that Biden said on Thursday that it would be launched in early February.
Harris said another business, with a large pharmacy chain, will be launched soon.
Walgreens, CVS, Kroger and Rite Aid also endeavored to vaccinate Americans in what is the largest and most complex immunization effort in the history of the United States. These injections are needed to help stop the virus, which has killed more than 400,000 and infected more than 24 million people in the United States.
The Trump administration pushed vaccine planning to states, which were asked to come up with their own plans, a move that has left many drugstore and supermarket chains in limbo.
“We have to be flexible when trying to operate state by state, but we feel that it is absolutely the right thing to do, to lean towards it and help find out,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said at the Consumer Electronics Show last week. . “This is the approach we are taking.”
He said Walmart is “ensuring that we can handle the Pfizer vaccine, the Modern vaccine and do it properly and safely.”
A spokesman for the Texas State Department of Health Services said that many of Walmart’s pharmacies have registered as vaccine providers in the state, but that “only a handful” have received doses so far due to limited supplies. “As soon as there is a wider offer and we can start to distribute regularly to more pharmacies, they will be included,” said the spokesman.
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson told Reuters he plans to “continue and expand” his existing partnership with Walmart and that, as additional doses of vaccine become available, Walmart will agree to be an important part of its distribution plan. .
Reporting by Melissa Fares in New York and Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Jason Neely and Steve Orlofsky