A CVS pharmacy manager prepares a vaccination dose for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke, Massachusetts, December 29, 2020.
Hoang ‘Leon’ Nguyen | The Republican | Swimming pool | via Reuters
CVS Health said on Wednesday it is on track to complete the first round of Covid-19 vaccinations at nursing homes across the country by Jan. 25.
The federal government worked with CVS and Walgreens to administer the shots to residents and staff in long-term care facilities across the country. CVS said it is on track to achieve its original goal for the nursing homes it already partners with.
CVS said it is now firing shots at nursing home residents and staff in 49 states and the District of Columbia. In addition to nursing homes, the company will also vaccinate residents and staff in assisted living facilities, with nearly 31,000 such facilities partnering with CFS, according to the company.
The company said it faced a number of challenges during the program. The actual number of residents in nursing homes was about 20% to 30% lower than predicted based on the number of beds, CVS said. And it noted that “initial staff take-up is low,” adding that some of that is likely due to facilities that want to distribute staff vaccinations. Facilities diverge vaccinations of employees to prevent shortages in case some employees stay at home for a few days due to side effects.
“We are dealing with a vulnerable population that requires site visits and, in some cases, room visits at facilities averaging less than 100 residents,” Larry Merlo, CEO of CVS Health, said in a statement. “Despite these challenges, we remain on track and the number of vaccines we administer will continue to rise as more facilities are activated by the states.”
While more than 3.2 million vaccine doses have been distributed by the federal government through the so-called federal pharmacy long-term care partnership, only 429,000 were administered on Tuesday, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But CVS noted that the CDC’s data lags reality for two to three days, which the CDC acknowledges.
Rollout of the vaccine has been slower than federal officials expected. Trump administration officials had said they hoped to vaccinate 20 million people by December, but as of Tuesday, just over 4.8 million people had received the first dose, according to the CDC.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said at an event hosted by STAT News on Tuesday that she expects the rollout to accelerate this month.
“I really expect the rate of administration to pick up quite a bit in the coming weeks,” she said, adding that facilities resolve early kinks and are comfortable handling the vaccines.
The Department of Health and Human Resources has reached out to CVS and other pharmacies to eventually offer vaccinations in locations across the country when the wider rollout begins. CVS said Wednesday it is in talks with several states “to make a limited number of doses available in the coming weeks ahead of the wider rollout.”
The comments from CVS come after Politico reported Tuesday that a senior HHS official said 3,000 to 6,000 pharmacies could start giving Covid-19 injections in the next two weeks.
– CNBCs Melissa Repko and Kevin Stankiewicz contributed to this report.