One million Moderna Covid-19 doses will be allocated to US pharmacies next week

The US government is expected to begin shipping Covid-19 directly to pharmacies next week, with one million doses of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine being allocated for the initial rollout.

The Biden administration announced this week that the vaccine rollout, called the federal retail pharmacy program, will launch on Feb. 11. The nation's pharmacies have the capacity to administer 100 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine in 30 days, but will need enough doses to do so, according the NACDS.

"Ultimately NACDS member pharmacies can meet and exceed the 100 million vaccinations in a month threshold, yet it's important to understand that the supply of vaccines remains the rate limiting factor in the vaccination effort," Steven Anderson, the organization's president and CEO, said.

The critical issue right now is the limited supply of vaccine.

"It's not vaccination sites, and it's not vaccinators, it is the supply of the vaccine," Jaeger said.

Jeager said the doses provided to pharmacies as part of the program will come directly from the federal government, not from supply provided to states. She said the program will expand as more supply becomes available and additional coronavirus vaccines are authorized for emergency use.

Pharmacies will still be required to follow state-level eligibility requirements, which Jaeger said is a point of confusion in the nationwide rollout.

"As of the beginning of the week, we had about six states still in Phase 1A, we had about 42 in Phase 1B, and we had three in 1C," she said. "The big issue is that the administration is asking all states to move to 65 and above. Whether or not those states and local jurisdictions do so — that will be up to them."

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-updates-02-05-21/h_033320fe1ea0010e4cdabdafbfbefa0b