More vaccines will be administered to Americans starting on Friday with the start of a federal program that delivers doses directly to drugstores and grocery pharmacies.
The program will start small, with one million doses of vaccine distributed to about 6,500 retail pharmacies. Over time, it will expand to up to 40,000 drugstores and grocery stores.
While some states in recent weeks have begun using a limited number of retail pharmacies to administer doses, delivery of vaccines directly from the federal government to pharmacies marks a new chapter in the United States’ vaccination campaign.
On Friday, Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid, among other retailers, will begin administering vaccines to qualified people based on state guidelines in limited locations across the country. Walgreens will have vaccines available in 22 states and Puerto Rico; Rite Aid will receive direct federal funding initially in five states, as well as in Philadelphia and New York City; and CVS will offer vaccines in 18 states and Puerto Rico.
Those eligible to receive the doses can check the availability of the pharmacy websites and many of the first available times are already filled.
The federal program, designed not to reduce doses allocated to states, begins a day after President Biden said his government had guaranteed enough vaccine doses to inoculate all American adults. (This news came with an appeal for patience: Mr. Biden said the logistical hurdles would likely mean that many Americans still wouldn’t have been vaccinated by the end of the summer.)
Biden on Thursday lamented the “gigantic” logistical challenge his government faces. “It is one thing to have the vaccine, it is another to have vaccinators,” he said during a presentation at the National Institutes of Health.
He also expressed frank frustration with the previous administration.
“While scientists were doing their job to discover vaccines in record time, my predecessor – I will be very frank about it – did not do its job in preparing for the huge challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions,” said Biden.
Health officials in the Trump administration rejected these suggestions, pointing out hundreds of instructions that Department of Health and Human Services officials offered the new health team, including on vaccine allocation and distribution.
A deal for an additional 200 million doses of vaccine announced on Thursday helps to fulfill a promise Biden made in January to increase supplies to cover more population. He then said that the government was closing a deal with two manufacturers, Pfizer and Moderna, as part of its larger promise that about 300 million Americans could receive a dose of the vaccine by the end of summer or early fall.
On Thursday, he said his government “has now bought enough vaccine to vaccinate all Americans”.