By Carl O’Donnell and Manas Mishra
(Reuters) – The United States government will begin sending COVID-19 vaccines directly to community health centers next week in an effort to speed up vaccinations and ensure doses reach vulnerable people, US health officials said. on Tuesday.
The government will send doses to 250 centers across the country selected based on their proximity to vulnerable groups, such as homeless people and those with limited English proficiency, they said. Typically, doses of the vaccine would go to state governments for distribution to health centers.
Eventually, the effort will expand to more than 1,300 community health centers.
The federal government will initially distribute 1 million doses of vaccines to health centers and increase from there, they added.
The program is part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to increase access to COVID-19 shots with the goal of administering 100 million doses in Biden’s first 100 days in office. Biden also made it a priority to ensure that vaccines are distributed equitably with respect to race, ethnicity and economic status.
The United States government is already ahead of its target of 100 million shots in 100 days, which only required it to modestly exceed the distribution levels of the previous government. Biden said in January that he can aim for 150 million shots in that period, but his press secretary later said that 100 million were still the official target.
The White House began this week to coordinate vaccine shipments directly to 6,500 pharmacies with the goal of reaching about 40,000.
“We are providing tools for communities across the country to do this work and we look forward to partnering with them to ensure equity,” said Marcella Nunez-Smith, chairman of the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force in Biden. a press call.
The United States has increased vaccine delivery from 8.6 million doses to 11 million weekly doses since Biden took office three weeks ago, said Jeff Zients, White House response coordinator for COVID-19.
The White House said it plans to continue to increase the number of doses it distributes and will use the federal government’s emergency powers under the Defense Production Act to increase vaccine production. Johnson & Johnson is expected to receive authorization for its experimental COVID vaccine later this month, which will further increase the supply of the vaccine.
(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell; Editing by Chris Reese and Cynthia Osterman)