Rick Gates, senior vice president of pharmacy and health care at Walgreens, told CNBC that providing vaccines to the general public “will not be chaos,” because the FDA has authorized Moderna’s Coverna-19 vaccine for emergency use and put plans are underway for states to have nearly 6 million doses by the beginning of next week.
“What you will see is that we will be very careful about how we will schedule the meetings, how we will work with the communities we are in, the states where we are in the priority populations, to make sure that there are no strings. on the pharmacy doors and to make sure people have safe, convenient and effective ways to get vaccines, ”Gates said.
Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine was launched in long-term care facilities on Friday, and pharmacists at Walgreens administered many of these photos. The federal government has agreements with Walgreens and other pharmacies, including CVS, to vaccinate millions of people across the country. In an interview Friday night with “The News with Shepard Smith,” Gates described how the organization’s pharmacists are training them to effectively administer the Covid-19 vaccine.
“The safety protocol we gave our pharmacists about training, up front, how to look for allergic reactions, how to make sure they monitor patients after vaccination, it’s all part of the normal process,” Gates said.
To date, the United States has vaccinated at least 66,000 people, according to publicly available data collected from 20 states, and this number is expected to increase dramatically as more states report their numbers. Gates acknowledged that the vaccination process involves a lot of organization, but stressed that “vaccines are what we do constantly, and monitoring patients after a vaccine is very common when we think about flu, Shingrix or other vaccines.” vaccines that are there. “
Host Shepard Smith asked Gates how Walgreens will manage to get people back to their pharmacies to get vaccinated, but they are not in a priority population. Gates explained that the vaccines will be pre-programmed and will not be offered a “walk-up” format, such as flu vaccines. He added that Walgreens pharmacies across the country will work with states and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ensure that those in need of vaccines receive them. Gates added that there will be reminders for people to receive the second dose.
“For the population. We will have all sorts of reminders, phone calls, if needed, to make sure Americans know they need to receive the second dose and the right schedule for that dose,” Gates said.