Biden administration to send 1m Covid vaccine doses to pharmacies next week to scale-up distribution

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The Biden administration has announced it will be sending one million Covid-19 vaccine doses to some pharmacies in the United States starting next week, to scale-up distribution of the jabs. 

These doses would be initially delivered to about 6,500 pharmacies across the country each week beginning 11 February, said Jeffrey Zients, President Joe Biden’s coronavirus czar, on Tuesday during a White House press briefing. 

This would be the first phase in Mr Biden’s federal pharmacy programme, which will offer more vaccinations for communities through local pharmacies. The Trump administration first announced in November that the federal government would partner with drug stores to administer Covid-19 jabs, but at the time no vaccines were approved. 

Already the Biden administration is delivering 10.5 million doses each week to states to be distributed among residents. But the additional one million doses for pharmacies will also now be distributed each week. 

The current vaccine supply of 11.5 million total doses sent out each week will be the minimum amount the federal government will ship for the next three weeks, a White House press release stated. 

Mr Zients said the additional one million doses available for the federal government to send out was due to the ramping up of manufacturing from Moderna and Pfizer, the two companies that received emergency use authorisation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their vaccines.

Read more: Follow live updates on the Biden administration

People who would be allowed to access these additional jabs would have to fit eligibility criteria put in place by the states, and this vaccine would be free for the individual. 

Many pharmacies were already administering vaccine doses for different states, but the new programme will involve the jabs arriving directly to different locations from the federal government. 

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) worked with states to select initial pharmacy partners for the new federal programme. Chain pharmacies agreeing to participate will include Walgreens, CVS Pharmacy, Walmart, Rite Aid, and Public Super Markets. Not all locations would supply vaccines initially in each state. 

Mr Biden has made the commitment to administer least 100 million vaccines within his first 100 days of office in an effort to control the spread of the novel virus. 

As of Tuesday, nearly 50 million vaccine doses have been distributed to states and more than 32 million were administered, according to the CDC vaccine tracker.

Mr Zients also announced that the federal government would be reimbursing states fully for “FEMA-eligible services”, such as masks, gloves, sheltering at-risk population groups, and utilising the National Guard for Covid-19 response efforts. 

The reimbursement would be backdated to the beginning of the pandemic in January 2020 and estimated to total $3bn to $5bn. 

But to fully support states, the Biden administration has called on Congress to approve the American Rescue Plan. If approved, $350bn would go directly towards states and their response to the pandemic.