By Anna Wilde Mathews and Tom McGinty
A federal effort to administer a Covid-19 vaccine to workers and
residents in long-term care facilities is set to begin Friday in
Connecticut, Florida and Ohio, with a broader rollout in a dozen
states starting Monday.
The program, which is being led by CVS Health Corp. and
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., faces major challenges to get the
shots rolled out to the approximately 15,600 nursing homes and
29,000 assisted-living communities in the U.S. These include
getting the consent of staffers and residents, the complexities of
storing and administering the Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE vaccine
and concerns over ensuring potential side effects from the shots
don't sideline too many workers at once.
Under contracts with the federal government, CVS has signed up
more than 40,000 long-term care facilities for vaccination and
Walgreens has around 35,000. Other pharmacies are also involved in
the program.
The vaccination program comes as Covid-19 cases and deaths in
nursing homes are surging. In the week ending Dec. 6, there were
4,525 deaths in nursing homes, according to data released Thursday
by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That was a 56%
rise from the 2,893 deaths in the week ending Nov. 15.
The Dec. 6 figure was the highest weekly total since the start
of the federal survey data in late May, barring one initial week of
data that incorporated some earlier results.
Overall, there have been more than 115,000 deaths linked to U.S.
long-term care facilities, according to a Wall Street Journal
tally.
Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp
Speed, the federal government's coronavirus response program, said
Wednesday that about 1,100 facilities around the country are set to
begin vaccinations on Monday. Facilities in West Virginia and two
Florida counties received shots this week, as did staffers in a few
other places around the country. In those cases, states decided to
move in advance of the federal program's launch and some
nursing-home staffers were vaccinated through hospital systems.
CVS said it plans to visit four nursing homes in Ohio and three
in Connecticut on Friday. Walgreens said it expects to be at eight
to 10 sites across Ohio, Connecticut and Florida.
Both companies said they would be vaccinating at facilities in a
dozen states next week, with 11 starting Monday. The early states
include New York, Nevada, Oklahoma and Kentucky. Walgreens said it
had around 800 long-term care vaccine clinics scheduled for next
week.
CVS said it is receiving shipments from Pfizer at around 180 of
its approximately 1,000 planned vaccine-distribution hubs this
week. Walgreens, which will have around 800 hubs, said it expects
some shipments this week and some over the weekend.
Chris Cox, a CVS executive who is overseeing the vaccination
rollout for the pharmacy chain, said the effort has gone smoothly.
Although the East Coast snowstorm appeared set to delay one box of
vaccination supplies destined for a nursing home in Connecticut,
CVS was able to get the delivery expedited so it would arrive in
time.
"We're really at the stage now where our field and store teams
are just flat-out to the wall, working around the clock," he
said.
After the vaccine arrives at hubs, teams of pharmacists and
other staffers will fan out to individual facilities to administer
shots. The vaccine will be kept in special coolers. Nursing-home
staffers will generally get their shots in a central location, but
residents can be visited in their rooms. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has told the nursing-home industry that
eligibility isn't limited to workers involved directly in care, but
also includes people who work in dietary services and other
employees.
"We're going to learn a lot over the next couple of days," said
Rick Gates, a senior vice president at Walgreens.
Before the pharmacy teams arrive at facilities, nursing homes
are supposed to secure consent from residents and staffers, but
nursing-home companies have said the process faces hurdles, both
technical and due to reluctance among some staffers and families.
For some residents, nursing homes must get the agreement of a
family member.
Nursing-home operators said they were informed in recent days of
visits scheduled in the coming weeks, and they are scrambling to
secure consents after CVS sent a new digital form this week that
they could use to collect them. Some nursing-home executives have
said the process has been confusing, but the digital form will
help.
"There's a lot that needs to be figured out, worked out and
implemented, " said Richard Feifer, chief medical officer of
Genesis Healthcare Inc., the biggest U.S. nursing-home
operator.
The company owns a Connecticut facility slated for vaccination
Friday. "It would have been nice if all these steps were finalized
earlier," Dr. Feifer said. He called the entire preparation process
"very accelerated, very stressful and challenging." But, he said,
"we are absolutely going to find a way" to get everything ready in
time.
Regarding consent forms, Mr. Cox said CVS is "really taking the
feedback from all of the facilities, and made it a much easier
process."
Some nursing homes have also said they want to stagger the doses
administered to staff in case some suffer side effects. CVS and
Walgreens are planning three visits to each facility, but both said
they had some flexibility if a nursing home needed to stagger doses
more than that.
--Jon Kamp contributed to this article.
Write to Anna Wilde Mathews at anna.mathews@wsj.com and Tom
McGinty at tom.mcginty@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 18, 2020 10:31 ET (15:31 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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