“Based on conservative assumptions, pharmacies are able to meet the demand for 100 million doses of vaccine in a month, when that level of vaccine supply is available,” Anderson told reporters by telephone on Wednesday.
So far, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States has vaccinated only about 10 million people and distributed just over 29 million doses of the vaccine. States say they are struggling to vaccinate people, in part because of a lack of public health infrastructure.
Pharmacy chains say they can help fill that gap.
NACDS represents 40,000 pharmacies and 155,000 pharmacists, according to Anderson. The group says that 90% of Americans live less than five miles from a drugstore and that the “dormant” Federal Pharmacy Partnership Program could open the door to taking advantage of pharmacy chain capacity.
“America’s retail pharmacies can easily administer 100 million doses of vaccine in 30 days,” the group said in a statement.
“This solution could easily be expanded even further as stores deploy more vaccinators – pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, pharmacy interns, nurses, clinical doctors, paramedics and others.”
Individual networks established their own optimistic plans on Wednesday.
Walgreens expects to administer 30 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine in the United States by the end of this summer, as soon as the vaccines are available to the general population.
The drugstore chain is hiring and training teams and increasing digital and telephone booking resources in preparation for the broader launch of the vaccine.
“We are ensuring that everyone is ready for this as soon as vaccines are available en masse, which we believe is likely in March or April,” said Alexander Gourlay, Walgreens director of operations, at the JP Morgan Conference’s 39th Annual Health Care.
By the end of this summer, Gourlay estimated, 300 million doses of the vaccine will have been administered across the country – enough to vaccinate 150 million people – and retail pharmacies will administer about 100 million of those doses.
CVS has even more ambitious plans to administer 100 million doses.
“We are very hopeful that the federal program will open soon and more direct distribution to pharmacies across the country, which will open up access,” CVS Executive Vice President Karen Lynch told the JP Morgan Health Conference .
Lynch said CVS currently has the capacity to administer 25 million vaccines per month, or about one million per day, through its stores across the country.
“We have a wide reach,” said Lynch, saying the company’s 10,000 stores could reach 85% of the American population.
At this early stage of the vaccine’s launch, CVS has administered vaccines within long-term care facilities after states allocate doses under contract with the federal government. Lynch said the pharmacy chain has just reached 1 million vaccines administered this week at long-term care facilities.
“We can open the opening to get more shots in the arm once the federal program is fully in place,” she said.