"Every dose that arrives in the state, they have pre-planned who is to get that," said Heidi Romero, a third-generation pharmacist at Griffith & Feil Drug in Kenova, West Virginia. West Virginia pharmacies have since moved on to school teachers, whose inoculations have likewise been coordinated at the state level, opening up vaccines to a wider segment of the public through individually scheduled appointments. Seeing a familiar face, a trusted face, goes a long way." "These folks are, for the most part, bedridden, they've got complex health conditions. "It's a complicated situation when you go into a nursing home," Beckner told Reuters. John Beckner, senior director of strategic initiatives at the National Community Pharmacists Association, said that local approach helped build trust. Instead, the state relied on a network of independent pharmacies and by the end of last month had offered the vaccine to all congregant-care residents. West Virginia opted out of the distribution partnership between the federal government and two national pharmacy chains, CVS (CVS.N) and Walgreens (WBA.O), for the immunization of residents at nursing homes and long-term care facilities. Meanwhile, the hyper-local approach taken by West Virginia is being credited with the progress it has achieved. He and others have blamed the faltering vaccine rollout in part on scarce funding for state and local governments and the lack of a federal game plan from the administration of former President Donald Trump. Alaska, much larger and more remote geographically, has administered at least the first of the two-dose COVID vaccine to 9.8% of its residents, by comparison.īiden, who assumed office on Wednesday, has vowed to rapidly accelerate the effort in the weeks ahead, setting a goal of inoculating 100 million Americans in the first 100 days of his presidency. West Virginia also ranks a close second behind Alaska in terms of how much of its population, 9.3%, has been inoculated. Only North Dakota, home to fewer than 800,000 people, has done that well. Some individual states have lagged behind with just a third or 40% of their vaccine allotments being administered as of Thursday, marking the one-year anniversary of the first locally transmitted COVID-19 case documented in the United States.īut West Virginia, a mostly rural state of nearly 2 million residents known for its rugged mountain terrain, stands far above the national average, using 72% of the doses it has received to date, CDC data shows. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Thursday. Jan 21 (Reuters) - Even as President Joe Biden laments the nation's sluggish COVID-19 immunization launch for a pace he calls "dismal," West Virginia is touting its relative success in making the most of vaccine supplies it has received so far.įewer than half of the nearly 38 million vaccine doses shipped to date by the federal government have actually made it into the arms of Americans, the U.S.
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