TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - As the very first vaccine for the Coronavirus has been approved for use in the United States, the focus now shifts to the distribution and administration of this vaccine. A CVS Health Representative spoke with News 10 and gave more information regarding the vaccine and CVS’s role in distribution.
CVS Health is hiring 700 licensed pharmacy technicians throughout Indiana to assist in the massive COVID-19 effort. Since the vaccine approval, It’s now largely up to each individual state to figure out who should receive the limited supply of the vaccine and how.
Residents and workers in long-term care facilities remain a top priority nationwide. Here’s all you need to know about CVS’s involvement in this process.
CVS will be in charge of the bulk of the vaccine doses that are headed to those facilities. More than 40,000 facilities have selected CVS as their vaccination partner. CVS and Walgreens will be the first in the United States to administer the vaccine.
Chief Medical Officer of CVS Health Dr. Troy Brennan spoke with CNN recently about this. He says CVS has been in contact with long-term care facilities across the country and they are working directly with states on how this all will work out.
“It will be challenging because each state will be different,” Dr. Brennan said, “Some states say just vaccinate the people in the skilled nursing facilities. Some states will want us to vaccinate not only the people in the skilled nursing facilities but also the health care workers in those facilities. So those kinds of details are going to vary from state to state.”
When COVID-19 vaccines are available for wider distribution, it will be offered at all CVS Pharmacy locations. CVS will have the capacity to administer 20 to 25 million shots every month when that time comes. Vaccinations will also be by appointment only for CVS Pharmacies.
Dr. Brennan says the bottom line is that CVS is prepared to play a critical role in the vaccination process. He spoke about the great amount of work that goes into this.
“It includes making key decisions within the states about who essential workers are and decisions about how we are going to check for the morbidity for those individuals who are under the age of 65 who should be getting the vaccine early,” Dr. Brennan concluded, “There are a lot of details to work out with the states, but that’s the way our system works. States make these decisions on a public health basis in close consultation with the CDC.”
