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Coronavirus

The Biden Administration is Rethinking the Mass COVID-19 Vaccination Sites

The 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.

Read the source article at Politics, Policy, Political News

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