U.S. to start sending COVID-19 vaccines directly to community health centers

(Reuters) – The U.S. government will begin shipping COVID-19 vaccines directly to community health centers next week in a bid to speed up vaccinations and ensure doses reach vulnerable people, officials said on Tuesday. American health.

The government will send doses to 250 centers across the country selected based on their proximity to vulnerable groups, such as the homeless and those with limited English proficiency, they said. Typically, vaccine doses would go to state governments for distribution to health centers.

Ultimately, the effort will extend to more than 1,300 community health centers.

The federal government will initially distribute 1 million doses of the vaccine to health centers and scale up from there, they added.

The program is part of a larger initiative by the Biden administration to increase access to COVID-19 injections with the goal of delivering 100 million doses in the first 100 days of his tenure. Biden has also made it a priority to ensure that vaccines are distributed equitably with regard to race, ethnicity and economic status.

The U.S. government is already ahead of schedule to meet its target of 100 million shots in 100 days, which only required it to slightly exceed the distribution levels of the previous administration. Biden said in January he could aim for 150 million shots during that time, but his publicist later said 100 million was still the official target.

The White House this week began coordinating vaccine shipments directly to 6,500 pharmacies with the goal of reaching around 40,000.

“We are providing tools to communities across the country to do this work and we look forward to partnering with them to ensure equity,” said Marcella Nunez-Smith, chair of the COVID Health Equity Task Force -19 from the Biden administration, during a press call.

The United States has increased vaccine distribution from 8.6 million doses to 11 million doses per week since Biden took office three weeks ago, said Jeff Zients, COVID-19 response coordinator to the White House.

The White House said it plans to continue increasing the number of doses it distributes and that it will use the federal government’s emergency powers under the Defense Production Act, to increase production of vaccines. Johnson & Johnson is expected to receive approval for its experimental COVID vaccine as early as this month, which would further increase vaccine stocks.