Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day three hundred
Speaker 1: and fourteen since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today's
Speaker 1: main story. One of the many reasons for the slow
Speaker 1: vaccine rolled out in the US is a lack of
Speaker 1: places to get a shot. The federal government wants to
Speaker 1: press the country's corner drug stores into service, and if
Speaker 1: it works, it could change everything. But first, here's what
Speaker 1: happened in virus news today. President Joe Biden warned the
Speaker 1: nation to prepare for its darkest days in the year
Speaker 1: long pandemic. The President said today that as many as
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand more Americans will likely die over the
Speaker 1: next month as he overhauls the federal coronavirus response and
Speaker 1: presses Congress for more aid. Biden spent the day sinning
Speaker 1: executive actions to boost food assistance and provide other relief
Speaker 1: for millions who are suffering financially. But his vow to
Speaker 1: reopen most US schools in his first one days could
Speaker 1: reignite clashes over how to safely return when many teachers
Speaker 1: haven't received the vaccine. In the United Kingdom, the coronavirus
Speaker 1: pandemic may no longer be spreading exponentially. That's according to
Speaker 1: government data, and suggests the country's third lockdown is working still.
Speaker 1: The government said the case rates remain dangerously high and
Speaker 1: urged the public to keep to lockdown rules. Finally, despite
Speaker 1: a scare from Norway, the World Health Organization said it
Speaker 1: sees no evidence that the Fiser vaccine contributed to the
Speaker 1: deaths of elderly people in the country. The w h
Speaker 1: O urged that the shot still be used. In a statement,
Speaker 1: the w h O Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety
Speaker 1: said that reports of deaths are in line with what
Speaker 1: is expected among quote frail elderly individuals end quote, and
Speaker 1: that the risk benefit balance of the vaccine still falls
Speaker 1: in favor of administering it to the elderly. And now,
Speaker 1: for today's main story, vaccines from Fiser, MODERNA and others
Speaker 1: will have the power to one day and the pandemic,
Speaker 1: or at least to tame it, but only after seventy
Speaker 1: or more of the world's population gets inoculated against COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: So far, the rollout has been anything but smooth. Big
Speaker 1: drug stores say they're ready to come to the rescue.
Speaker 1: I spoke to reporters Robert Langrith and Angelica Levito about
Speaker 1: the potentially massive vaccine infrastructure that the neighborhood pharmacy could provide.
Speaker 1: The US vaccine rollout has gotten off too. I think
Speaker 1: it's fair to say a slow start. Um. Now, football stadiums,
Speaker 1: even Disneyland have been turned into vaccination sites. But I'm
Speaker 1: wondering what role does the corner drug store, like say
Speaker 1: CBS or Walgreens, what role does it have in getting
Speaker 1: America's vaccine plan back on track. Yeah, so, basically because
Speaker 1: the initial vaccination campaign has gotten off to a slow
Speaker 1: start UH and sluggish startings behind the schedule of what
Speaker 1: we need where we need to need it to be.
Speaker 1: We need more vaccination sites, just as many as possible.
Speaker 1: And what the corner drug store offers, including big places
Speaker 1: like CVS and Walgreens, drug stores at grocery stores and
Speaker 1: big box stores like Walmart, as well as true men,
Speaker 1: mom and pop independent chains, what those offer are lots
Speaker 1: and lots of locations are just everywhere. CVS has thousand locations,
Speaker 1: Wall Beans is over at nine thousand alone, and there's
Speaker 1: a total of forty UH chain drugsters in the US
Speaker 1: and another twenty thousand or so mom and pop one.
Speaker 1: So what these offer are places where all sorts of
Speaker 1: people around the country can get vaccines and just more places,
Speaker 1: more outlets to get vaccines. And they're ready and willing
Speaker 1: to go and this could start happening as soon as February.
Speaker 1: And so let's let's break into some of their preparations.
Speaker 1: I mean, what have the big chains, you know, you
Speaker 1: mentioned CVS and Walgreens, UM, what have they been doing
Speaker 1: to prepare for their role in the vaccination plan. So,
Speaker 1: pharmacies really first started their vaccination efforts about ten years
Speaker 1: ago when they were involved with the H one and
Speaker 1: one rollout, back when we were in a similar situation
Speaker 1: trying to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: And in the ten years since, they have really invested
Speaker 1: a lot of time in their efforts. So they've been
Speaker 1: trying to boot their I T systems and just their workflow.
Speaker 1: And so now they're plugging that in UM into this
Speaker 1: current effort and they are tweaking it for COVID specifically,
Speaker 1: because this is a little unique in that we're trying
Speaker 1: to vaccinate people really quickly, but you don't want to
Speaker 1: have hundreds of people lined up in your drug store.
Speaker 1: So this past flu season they tinkered with their schedules
Speaker 1: and had people actually make appointments ahead of time so
Speaker 1: that you could space people out and make sure you
Speaker 1: didn't have you know, two people all coming in at
Speaker 1: once for their flu shot. And so they'll use that
Speaker 1: same system now to get ready, have people come in
Speaker 1: UM one by one and try to space people out.
Speaker 1: They're also, of course trying to teach people about the
Speaker 1: specific vaccines. There's a lot of misinformation out there, and
Speaker 1: so UM just trying to get out ahead of that.
Speaker 1: They Change They say that in theory they're capable of
Speaker 1: doing thirty million patients a month giving vaccines at their locations.
Speaker 1: And there are some estimates that if you can buy
Speaker 1: all the change stores together, all the different change and
Speaker 1: grocery store chains, that theoretically they could give up to
Speaker 1: a hundred million doses a month, which would well exceed
Speaker 1: Biden's target of a hundred million doses in a hundred days. Now,
Speaker 1: what chains like CVS and Walgreens are doing to prepare,
Speaker 1: you know, first of all other training lots of pharmacy
Speaker 1: technicians uh in giving the shots. CVS I think has
Speaker 1: trained twelve thousand pharmacy technicians and counting. They're hiring new
Speaker 1: people to help with the COVID nineteen response, you know,
Speaker 1: both for testing and for now for vaccines, and they're
Speaker 1: preparing like places for it to be done. Lots of
Speaker 1: Walgreens and CVS outlets already have exam rooms. CVS is
Speaker 1: ave stores with minute clinics in them, which are little clinics,
Speaker 1: there's exam rooms there. And in other places they're taking
Speaker 1: advantage of things like old unused photo labs, the dressing
Speaker 1: rooms that are not being used now in target stores
Speaker 1: where CBS operates, the pharmacies, they're they're taking advantage of
Speaker 1: as many places they can two administrative vaccines and just
Speaker 1: gearing up for what's likely to be a very big rollout. Now.
Speaker 1: As far as as the rollout and in particular the
Speaker 1: timeline for this, I mean, when really were drug stores
Speaker 1: anticipating to come to the four as it were in
Speaker 1: in the vaccine rollout program within the US, I mean,
Speaker 1: has there been any change to when they're expecting to
Speaker 1: really start becoming um almost say, the front line for
Speaker 1: distributing vaccines to Americans. So the pharmacies were scheduled to
Speaker 1: start vaccinating people once we got into phase two, which
Speaker 1: is really when the general public can start getting vaccinated. However,
Speaker 1: we're quickly seeing that change. We've only been vaccinating people
Speaker 1: for a month, and already you have a number of
Speaker 1: states um like Louisiana, for example, that they early in
Speaker 1: January started turning to drug stores to help them because
Speaker 1: they want to get in the communities. They're tapping independence
Speaker 1: and chains because the independence tend to be in more
Speaker 1: rural areas and can reach broader swaths of the population.
Speaker 1: And now President Fighting is saying that they want to
Speaker 1: get pharmacies involved in the next few weeks. And will
Speaker 1: that be Will that mean that every single pharmacy in
Speaker 1: America suddenly has vaccines available? No, of course not. We
Speaker 1: don't have that many yet. But we are seeing this
Speaker 1: acceleration because there has been um such a problem getting
Speaker 1: shots into arms, and pharmacies offer another way to get
Speaker 1: into the community and meet people where they are. A
Speaker 1: lot of news has been around the difficulty in transporting
Speaker 1: and storing some of these vaccines. Does this impact the
Speaker 1: drug stores at all in terms of their need to
Speaker 1: have some of these facilities, say the very cold freezers
Speaker 1: and whatnot in order to be able to to store
Speaker 1: these vaccines. I actually talked to CVS about this and
Speaker 1: they said that it's the Fiser vaccine that needs the
Speaker 1: super alto cold storage, and Fiser has designed special dry
Speaker 1: ice containers that can keep in storage, you know, for
Speaker 1: a number of we and CVS and said that in
Speaker 1: their work on distributing the vaccine to nursing homes that
Speaker 1: they've been able to so far successful use these dry
Speaker 1: ice containers that Fiser has and that that hasn't been
Speaker 1: a problem. So they are not anticipating that the super
Speaker 1: could storage requirements needed in particular for the Fiser vaccine
Speaker 1: is going to be a massive problem. They think they
Speaker 1: can handle that. And one other thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: mention was that, you know, just because the big pharmacy
Speaker 1: change are expressing a great confidence, you know, we shouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily expect miracles for them from them, or you know,
Speaker 1: think that this is going to somehow obviate the need
Speaker 1: for big mass of vaccination sites and vaccination sites and
Speaker 1: stadiums and gymnasiums and community centers. We all still definitely
Speaker 1: need those. And the Big Change CVS and Walgrains, they
Speaker 1: were to have a primary contract to help distribute in
Speaker 1: many states to nursing homes, and they face a criticize
Speaker 1: criticism from some local officials on your why that hasn't
Speaker 1: gone faster. So, you know, we shouldn't expect just because
Speaker 1: they say they're prepared, that that it will produce some
Speaker 1: miraculous turnaround. It's just that, you know, every of additional
Speaker 1: capacity will help, and pharmacies and a lot of capacity.
Speaker 1: Over the weekend, I walked into a CBS store and
Speaker 1: it was interesting seeing in real life um sort of
Speaker 1: the difference because when you talk to the pharmacy executives,
Speaker 1: they say that they have these wonderful systems to keep
Speaker 1: people sticking to the schedule and only there when they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be there. But when you walk in in
Speaker 1: the vestibule, there were probably ten different signs saying that
Speaker 1: this particular location did not have the COVID nineteen vaccine.
Speaker 1: So you have to wonder what will happen when word
Speaker 1: gets out that that location does have the vaccine, and
Speaker 1: can you really manage expectations. You know, there's also the
Speaker 1: question of financial motivation. What is the incentive for these
Speaker 1: big chains or even the mom and pop stores to
Speaker 1: be involved with the vaccination rollout, So pharmacies and other
Speaker 1: places that provide provide the vaccine, you know, do have
Speaker 1: an incentive for getting it out there to as many
Speaker 1: people as possible. While there is no payment for the
Speaker 1: vaccine itself, providers administrantor you know, we'll get paid for
Speaker 1: the administration of the vaccine, and the federal medical program
Speaker 1: that covers the older people is paying about seventeen dollars
Speaker 1: to the first dose and a little over twenty eight
Speaker 1: dollars to the second dose. Also, there's definitely in financial
Speaker 1: incentive for pharmacies to push through as many people as possible.
Speaker 1: And the good news is that there's a financial centers
Speaker 1: that make sure that people all got the second dose
Speaker 1: because they're paid more for the second dose. And one
Speaker 1: thing too, that um that has come up. So CBS
Speaker 1: of course has been investing very heavily in expanding its
Speaker 1: testing capabilities and one things that one thing that executives
Speaker 1: talk about when they, you know, address how that has performed,
Speaker 1: is that they're finding that they're reaching many more people
Speaker 1: than usual. So of course they're testing people and they're
Speaker 1: doing a public health service, but they're also benefiting because
Speaker 1: they're getting people that have never walked into a CBS,
Speaker 1: or maybe they have it in five or so years,
Speaker 1: and now suddenly they're attached to the system. They know
Speaker 1: that CBS is there and they might think of them
Speaker 1: for future health services. That was Robert Langreth and Angelica Levito,
Speaker 1: and that's it for our show today. For coverage of
Speaker 1: the outbreak from one and twenty bureaus around the world,
Speaker 1: visit Bloomberg dot com slash Coronavirus and if you like
Speaker 1: the show, please leave us a review and a rating
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to
Speaker 1: help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily
Speaker 1: edition is produced by Topher foreheads Magnus Hendrickson and me
Speaker 1: Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Robert Langrath
Speaker 1: and Angelica Levito. Original music by Leo Citrian. Our editors
Speaker 1: are Rick Shine and Francesco Leave. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.