Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced that California has opted into the federal COVID-19 Pharmacy Partnership.
At no cost to the state or local government, CVS and Walgreens will administer the Pfizer vaccine to residents and staff in long-term care facilities.
Starting Monday, CVS and Walgreens began with nursing homes, which will take an estimated three to four weeks, and then vaccinate staff and residents in assisted living, residential care and other long-term care facilities.
“Vaccinating those most vulnerable among us is critical to fighting this virus,” said Gov. Newsom. “By leveraging CVS and Walgreens resources, we can effectively deploy vaccines to residents and staff at our long-term care facilities, which are at higher risk of Covid transmission – and do it at no cost to the state or local government.”
The program will enable counties to leverage CVS and Walgreens pharmacy staff to administer the vaccine more broadly with pharmacy staff going directly to care facilities.
Skilled nursing facilities will receive vaccine from staff from CVS and Walgreens. Approximately 499 nursing homes will be provided vaccine by CVS and 357 by Walgreens.
Lake County Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace confirmed to Lake County News that CVS and Walgreens will be providing the services to local skilled nursing facilities.
However, he noted, “Unfortunately they are slow.”
Separately, in a Monday COVID-19 update, Pace said Public Health will begin vaccinating skilled nursing facility staff ahead of the CVS and Walgreen vaccination program, which isn’t set to roll out until mid-January in Lake County.
The state program with CVS and Walgreens calls for the vaccines to be administered at skilled nursing facilities by pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and nurses.
Pharmacy technicians are participating under a recent waiver by the Board of Pharmacy that requires appropriate supervision under California law and specialized training.
“This partnership is an opportunity to augment other vaccination efforts at the local level to prioritize our most vulnerable Californians where we are seeing the most outbreaks, hospitalizations, and deaths,” said Interim State Public Health Officer Dr. Erica Pan. “The partnership also allows us to continue to vaccinate other high priority individuals such as our front-line health care workers who are critical to our ongoing response to a surge of cases.”
Specifically, the program:
– Schedules and coordinates on-site vaccine clinic dates directly with each facility. Pharmacy staff will visit each facility several times to ensure that all residents and employees who wish to be vaccinated get the vaccine.
– Orders vaccines and associated supplies (e.g. syringes, needles, personal protective equipment).
– Ensures cold storage for the vaccine.
– Provides on-site administration of the vaccine to all residents and staff.