Biden admin remakes vaccine strategy after mass vaccination sites fizzlehttps://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/29/covid-vaccine-sites-478233The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot†community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
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The vaccination hubs, which are run by FEMA and staffed in part by National Guard troops and other Pentagon personnel, have administered just 1.7 million doses since the beginning of February. Over the last two weeks, the sites gave about 67,000 shots a day, according to a series of internal FEMA briefing documents and data sets obtained by POLITICO. That’s roughly 2.5 percent of all doses administered nationwide during the same period, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By comparison, the federal retail pharmacy program reported March 11 it had administered nearly 1 million doses over a single day. Over the course of the next four days, the program’s pharmacies administered more than 5 million more doses, according to the federal vaccination data obtained by POLITICO.
Guess which President set the stage for the retail pharmacy program:
September 9, 2020 - HHS authorized state-licensed pharmacists to order and administer, and state-licensed or registered pharmacy interns acting under proper supervision to administer, COVID-19 vaccinations to persons ages 3 or older;
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/09/09/trump-administration-takes-action-to-expand-access-to-covid-19-vaccines.htmlOctober 21, 2020 - HHS issued guidance authorizing qualified pharmacy technicians and State-authorized pharmacy interns to administer COVID-19 vaccines when made available, and COVID-19 tests;
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/10/21/trump-administration-takes-action-further-expand-access-vaccines-covid-19-tests.htmlNovember 12, 2020 - HHS announced partnerships with large chain pharmacies and networks that represent independent pharmacies and regional chains to get safe and effective vaccines supported by Operation Warp Speed into communities and to people as quickly as possible with no out-of-pocket costs;
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/11/12/trump-administration-partners-chain-independent-community-pharmacies-increase-access-future-covid-19-vaccines.htmlWhat
LIEden actually meant when he and his crew lyingly claimed that Trump had no vaccines plan was that Trump didn't have a massive Federally controlled distribution plan. Well,
LIEden started Federally run distribution, and it's been an expensive failure, especially compared to Trump's decentralized distribution. Unsurprisingly and predictably.
