Some lucky Kentucky residents were able to skip the line and get COVID-19 vaccines – because their local Walgreens had extra doses.
Louisville’s restaurant owner Andrew Masterson told the Courier-Journal that he was among those immunized, despite not being part of a priority group, after a friend told him that Pfizer doses were available on his local Walgreens.
“He called us and we ran,” said Masterson of himself and his wife.
“It was pure luck,” added Masterson, whose wife has stage 4 cancer.
A Walgreens representative told the establishment that while the general public does not normally receive the vaccine before groups such as frontline healthcare professionals and nursing home residents, the drugstore giant found itself with the remaining doses expiring. .
The extra injections were offered to local rescuers, store employees and residents, many of whom are over 65, said spokesman Phil Caruso.
It was “an isolated situation in which the quantity of vaccine doses requested by the facilities exceeded the real need,” said Caruso to the Courier-Journal.
“These measures were taken to ensure that each dose of a limited supply of vaccine was used to protect patients and communities.”
It was not clear how many extra doses there were.
Caruso said Walgreens would contact those who had the remaining vaccines to ensure that they also received the second necessary immunization.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on Monday that something similar happened at a Walgreens in Lexington last week – and he is not happy about that.
The United States is still launching its limited supply of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, with health officials saying it will be months before everyone has access to them.
“The reaction was not what it should have been,” said Beshear of how Kentucky drugstores handled their extra doses.
“Now, do I believe it came from a good place? Yes, because they didn’t want anything to be wasted, ”he said. “But should it have been done differently? Yes.”
The governor said the state, which requires priority groups to be vaccinated first, will work “to ensure that the right thing happens next time”.
The development came after a Disney employee in California boasted on Facebook on December 20 that she also received the vaccination, although she is not in any priority group, because of extra doses at the hospital where the “big” aunt works. of your husband.