Starting next week, COVID-19 vaccines will be sent to pharmacies

DORAL, FL – Starting next week, 1 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines will be sent to pharmacies across the United States.

The Associated Press reported that 6,500 pharmacies will get the vaccines as the White House announced recently. 

Additionally, the new administration is also promoting a weekly allocation of vaccines of 500,000 that will be distributed to states and territories in the coming weeks. It will be up to 10.5 million. 

About the COVID-19 vaccines coming to pharmacies, coronavirus coordinator, Jeff Zients, said to the AP that this new decision “will provide more sites for people to get vaccinated in their communities”. 

“This is a critical step to provide the public with convenient trusted places to get vaccinated in their communities,” he added.

Initially, only a limited number of drugstores will be included in the distribution, although it is expected to increase the number of participating pharmacies as well as the allocation of vaccines when the production also increases. The goal is to sent more than 40,000 COVID-19 vaccines nationwide.

COVID-19 vaccines will be sent to pharmacies such as CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid, big box stores such as Walmart and Costco, and supermarket pharmacies. CVS confirmed it will receive 250,000 doses initially, to be distributed to pharmacies in 11 states, as the AP reported. 

About who will be able to access the vaccines, it was revealed that minorities communities that have suffered a “disproportionately” high toll of disease and deaths from the virus will be prioritized. 

However, every state will have a local guidelines so that people can know whether or not they are eligible to get a shot at their local pharmacy. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during the first phase vaccines will be distributed in areas that are “harder to reach to ensure that we have equitable distribution of the pharmacy doses.”

The decision comes after Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, advised Americans to get vaccinated at their earliest convenience to avoid further mutations of the virus. 

“Viruses cannot mutate if they don’t replicate,” Fauci said. “And if you stop their replication by vaccinating widely and not giving the virus an open playing field to continue to respond to the pressures that you put on it, you will not get mutations,” reported the AP. 

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