A few weeks ago the Biden Administration announced an initiative to increase vaccine supply in states through the new Federal Retail Pharmacy Program.
Last week the program kicked off with the direct distribution of vaccine to about 200 pharmacies in Arizona. AZ pharmacies around the state received an average of 100 doses of vaccine through the program. All of the vaccine is Moderna.
The participating pharmacies in AZ are Safeway, Fry’s and Walgreens. I also saw that some appointments will be available at a few Albertsons. The program will be expanded in subsequent weeks will be based on vaccine availability. The goal is to include more than 40,000 locations nationwide (that would be about 800 pharmacies in AZ- or about ½ of all AZ pharmacies).
Importantly, the vaccine is distributed directly from the federal government to the participating pharmacies. This is important because it prevents state health departments from diverting the vaccine to other priorities that they may have like state-run vaccination sites.
It’s critical that we diversify the ways in which people can find vaccine because the current one-size-fits-all allocation and distribution system does not serve lower income communities well. See last week’s blog post to get an idea of the health disparities that are emerging.
The federal pharmacy program provides a direct way of building far more access points while giving people an alternative to state allocation schemes that provide advantages to wealthier persons.
FQHC Distribution Programs Announced
The Biden Administration has also announced another new federal program whereby the federal government will directly distribute to Federally Qualified Health Centers.
This is also a terrific new program because it will directly allocate vaccine to FQHCs who focus their services on rural and underserved areas, precisely the folks that are at a disadvantage right now getting appointments through the ADHS system. Importantly, appointments for vaccine at FQHCs can be made without going through the convoluted ADHS appointment website.
The federal pharmacy and FQHC programs will become increasingly significant when the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is authorized next weekend. The J&J vaccine is perfect for pharmacies to use. Storage and handling for that vaccine is just like most other vaccines.
The FDA committee is meeting on February 26 to consider the J&J emergency use application. I expect authorization to happen by March 1 with shipments starting March 2. Hopefully the destination for many if not most of the J&J vaccines will be through this new federal pharmacy program.
CNN is reporting that “… a J&J official stated that the company currently has less than 10M doses manufactured and available for distribution in the US”. This is a disappointing number as it amounts to about 200,000 doses for Arizona. At least this is a single dose vaccine so it’s equivalent to 400,000 doses of Moderna or Pfizer.
Editorial Note: The Association for State and Territorial Health Officials sent a letter to the President urging him to better coordinate the allocation of vaccine through the FQHC and retail pharmacy programs. Thankfully, the letter stops short of urging the federal government to relinquish control of these programs to governors and state health directors… but the letter goes right up to that edge.
We have seen and continue to see, first-hand, that governors and state health directors often allocate vaccine toward their preferred sites (e.g. State Farm) that aren’t focused on providing vaccine to underserved areas.
If the federal government were to hand over allocation control to state health directors and their governors, we can expect to see vaccine that is intended for local pharmacies and Federally Qualified Health Centers get diverted to pet high-profile vaccination sites that are not focused on helping low-income communities.
