Brian Caswell, owner of Wolkar Drug in Baxter Springs, Kansas, has been eager for his independent pharmacy to help with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
He bought a specially equipped freezer for storage purposes, certified additional employees to administer vaccines and bought scheduling software to gear up for the push.
“Everybody stepped up to do everything that the CDC asked,” he said. “The only thing that we couldn’t get was vaccines.”
Drugstore giants CVS and Walgreens and big-box stores such as Walmart and Kroger got most of the vaccines from the initial allotment devoted to retail pharmacies, independent pharmacists said.
Community pharmacies, they argued, can play a critical role in delivering COVID-19 shots, so they're frustrated that they aren’t receiving as many vaccines proportionally as major chains get from the federal, state and local governments. They said their personal relationships with their customers are crucial to a successful vaccine rollout, and they reject the suggestion that they don't have the technology necessary to handle the scheduling process.
If local pharmacies are left out, that threatens to prevent Americans in low-income communities and people of color from getting vaccinated quickly since community pharmacies are more likely to be located in what the federal government considers to be socially vulnerable areas, independent pharmacists said.
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