HOUSTON – Beginning Monday, hundreds of pharmacists and technicians will be heading to more than 2,000 long-term care homes across the state of Texas including right here in Houston. They plan to vaccinate thousands of residents and workers.
“Approximately 275,000 individuals will be vaccinated through this time which is pretty impressive for one state,” said John Fratamico, District Leader for CVS Health.
CVS tells KPRC 2 it is now moving from a defensive stance against the coronavirus with its testing sites to an all fence if attack now being able to offer the vaccine. They plan to visit nursing homes a total of three times, the last to make sure they vaccinate whoever they may have missed.
“The first time for this week will be the initial dose and that is for residents and for workers at these locations and then in three to four weeks we’ll be back for the second dose the booster,” says Fratamico.
CVS has set up several dropoff locations to get vaccines to nursing homes faster.
“We have selected by geographic need select depot stores, doesn’t mean we would actually administer them here, these are just holding points for the vaccines. So here’s the depot store and around these depot stores will be long-term care facilities so we’re trying to compress time and distance,” adds Fratamico.
CVS is also in need of more workers to help in this vaccine administration process that will likely last for several more months.
“We’re going to hire 15000 people in combination of nurse practicioners, pharmacists, technicians,” said Fratamico.
This phase set to last 12 weeks.
CVS hopes to have the vaccine available to the general public sometime in the spring.