A CVS pharmacy manager is preparing a dose of coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine at the Soldiers House in Holyoke, Massachusetts, on December 29, 2020.
Hoang ‘Leon’ Nguyen | The Republican | Swimming Pool | via Reuters
CVS Health said on Wednesday it was on track to complete the first round of Covid vaccine shots at nursing homes across the country by January 25th.
The federal government has partnered with CVS and Walgreens to deliver the shots to residents and staff in long-term care facilities across the country. CVS said it is on target to achieve the original goal for the nursing homes he has already worked with.
CVS said it is now firing on residents and staff in nursing homes in 49 states and the District of Columbia. In addition to nursing homes, the company said it would vaccinate residents and staff in relief facilities, with nearly 31,000 such facilities working with CVS.
The company said it faced some challenges during the program. The actual number of residents in nursing homes was about 20 to 30% lower than projections based on the bed count, CVS said. And it noted that ‘initial recruitment among staff is low’, adding that part of it is probably due to facilities that want to make the vaccinations of staff disappear. Facilities space each other employees’ vaccinations to prevent shortages in case of side effects that some staff are home for a few days.
“We are dealing with a vulnerable population that needs on site and in some cases room visits to an average of less than 100 residents,” CEO Larry Merlo said in a statement. “Despite these challenges, we remain on schedule, and the number of vaccines we administer will continue to rise as more states are activated by the states.”
Although more than 3.2 million doses of vaccine have been distributed by the federal pharmacy partnership for long-term care programs, only 429,000 were administered on Tuesday, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. But CVS noted that the CDC’s data remains two to three days behind, which CDC acknowledges.
The effect of the vaccine is slower than expected. Trump officials said they hope to vaccinate 20 million people in December, but according to Tuesday, just over 4.8 million received the first dose.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on Tuesday at an event hosted by STAT News that she expects implementation to accelerate.
“I really expect the rate of administration to increase quite a bit in the next few weeks,” she said, adding that facilities are working out early twists and working comfortably with the vaccination of the vaccines.
The Department of Health and Human Resources has utilized CVS and other retail pharmacies to eventually offer vaccinations on websites across the country when the broader launch begins. CVS said on Wednesday it was in talks with several states “to make a limited number of doses available in the coming weeks before the wider implementation.”
CVS’s comments come after Politico reported on Tuesday that a senior HHS official said 3,000 to 6,000 pharmacies could begin administering Covid-19 shots in the next two weeks.
– CNBC’s Melissa Repko and Kevin Stankiewicz contributed to this report.