Feds to ship vaccine directly to pharmacies

The White House announced plans on Tuesday to ship 1 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine directly to pharmacies nationwide.

The shipments are scheduled to happen as soon as Feb. 11 and will be in addition to each state’s weekly allocation.

Soon, pharmacists at Safeway, Albertsons and Haggen stores in Washington state will be able to administer the COVID-19 vaccine.

“It feels we can contribute to getting Washington back to normal,” said David Green, director of pharmacy for Safeway stores in Washington. " A solution that we can actually help save lives. That feels good.”

Thirty-two Safeway stores were already receiving the vaccine through the state’s allocation. Soon, the feds will send the vaccine to all 170 stores in the state. Safeway expects to receive 15,000-17,000 doses each week. That averages out to about 100 doses per store each week.

They ask customers to make reservations through the website so that the phone line can be reserved for people without internet access.

Costco pharmacies will also get the vaccine directly from the feds.

The plan starts with 6,500 pharmacies with the ability to grow to 40,000 if and when the vaccine supply increases.

President Joe Biden’s administration increased supply to states last week by 16%. Now it’s going up another 5%.

“Listen, this is the ultimate thing we have to do. We need more doses. We’re getting doses into people’s arms as fast as we can get them,” said Gov. Jay Inslee.

Cox Media Group