With federal approval, Walgreens pharmacists across the U.S. could start helping select nursing homes to vaccinate against COVID-19 by year’s end, it said Friday.
Indiana is not included in the company’s initial round. Walgreens said it selected 10 nursing homes in Florida, Ohio and Connecticut to roll out the effort Friday. Walgreens will soon ramp up visits to 800 long-term care facilities in 12 states.
Those states were Connecticut, Ohio, Kentucky, Nevada, Florida, Oregon, Maryland, Oklahoma, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, a Walgreens corporate spokeswoman said via email.
“The company will begin clinics in additional 39 states the week of Dec. 28, or once a jurisdiction is approved to begin by the CDC,” she added.
Meanwhile, concerns are growing as COVID-19 cases appear to be increasing at some Indiana long-term care facilities.
After a lull starting in June, virus cases in Indiana’s long-term care facilities have been steadily rising since fall — up to a weekly rolling average of 165 confirmed cases Dec. 5, from just over 60 Oct. 1. They have reported 265 virus deaths since Nov. 15, according to the state.
St. Anthony Village in Crown Point reported seven cases on its skilled nursing side Dec. 13, with none on the assisted living side, family members said. Of those, three came back positive in the past day, it said. One staff member was currently positive.
Visitor restrictions have been in place since the fall. Indiana’s online dashboard for long-term care facilities, last updated Dec. 9 shows no new cases among residents and staff at St. Anthony’s.
It’s not clear if it’s “indicative of a larger outbreak starting,” one man said.
A call left with St. Anthony Village Executive Director Dean Ramsey was not immediately returned.
To date, the Crown Point facility has reported 78 resident cases and 34 staff cases, while 23 residents have died, with nearly all occurring earlier this year. Earlier in the pandemic, it was one of Northwest Indiana’s hardest hit nursing homes.
Indiana has seen at least 17,000 cases in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, with 3,547 deaths, or about half of Indiana’s confirmed and suspected COVID deaths.
The state’s COVID-19 vaccination plan calls for long-term care residents to be in Phase 1B, just after the first round of front line health care workers in Phase 1A. An Indiana State Department of Health spokesperson did not provide specifics to questions on when pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS were scheduled to start.
“The timing depends on the availability of vaccine,” she said.
The plan is for the pharmacy to eventually visit 35,000 facilities and vaccinate 3 million residents. CVS and other companies are also part of the partnership to deliver shots at nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
Indiana said it received more than 55,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the first week of shipments, for front line medical workers. However, the next two weeks would be reduced. State officials said they learned this Wednesday, but declined to give specific figures.
However, Illinois said its second/third week shipments could be cut in half. State health departments in Iowa and Missouri said theirs could be cut by 30%.
In a news release, Pfizer said it had “millions more doses sitting in our warehouse” but it hadn’t gotten word from the federal government for “shipment instructions for additional doses.”
A second vaccine, by Moderna Inc., was greenlighted by a FDA committee Thursday and is expected to get emergency approval soon.
The Associated Press contributed.