As you’ve probably heard, on Wednesday, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) sent a letter to the new US president, Joe Biden, offering “to help him achieve his goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans in the first 100 days of his administration”.
On the one hand, the company highlighted its “more than 800,000 employees in the United States, most of whom are essential workers” as a great place to start vaccinating. At the same time, with 800,000 workers at its disposal, a vast logistics network and a range of retail and warehouse properties to work with, Amazon said it is “ready to act quickly” to help distribute vaccines.
Today, Walmart (NYSE: WMT) raised his hand and declared that he could do the same.
Image source: Walmart.
The headline from the Walmart blog post by its executive vice president for health and wellness, Dr. Cheryl Pegus, basically said it all: “When the vaccines are launched in the U.S., Walmart will be ready to serve.”
“Last year,” says the company, it trained “thousands of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians” at its “more than 5,000 pharmacies in the United States and Puerto Rico” to start administering vaccines. As soon as vaccines begin to arrive, “at full capacity,” says Walmart, “we hope to be able to deliver 10 to 13 million doses per month”, performing vaccines “seven days a week at our pharmacies” – and, in particularly in underserved areas under federal designation.
Amazon may be the queen of e-tail and package delivery, but “with 150 million people passing through our doors each week,” Walmart is reminding the government that it is “in a unique position to reach people where already make purchases “.
Investors seem to be betting that the government will accept Walmart’s offer. On a bearish day for the stock market, Walmart shares rose more than 1%.