Michigan to CDC: Allow more pharmacies to vaccinate long-term care residents

Christina Hall
Detroit Free Press

The state of Michigan is asking the federal government to expand the number of pharmacies that would be allowed to administer COVID-19 vaccines to residents and staff in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

Pharmacies such as Meijer and Kroger, among others in Michigan, could be added to the list to help speed up  vaccination of the state's most vulnerable population.

The state made the request with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the most recent conversation happened this week, said Bobby Leddy, deputy press secretary for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, in an email response Friday.

"The federal government’s Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care (LTC) Program originally allowed for only a couple of pharmacies to participate in vaccine administration, which has created a bottleneck," he said. "We are hopeful the federal government will partner with us to show that states can move more quickly when we have the flexibility to work together with existing partnerships."

He said the state has been working with "many pharmacy partners who want to help get shots in arms quicker."

Leddy said Meijer has 30 teams of 10 people ready to inoculate up to 30,000 people per day "which can be deployed immediately if the federal government would approve our expanded partnership request with other pharmacies AND increase the number of vaccines sent to Michigan."

More:Gov. Gretchen Whitmer: 'Be patient' when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine rollout

Leddy said that if the state's request is approved "we would shave weeks off of the process for long-term care and skilled nursing facilities." 

Frank Guglielmi, senior director of corporate communications for Meijer, said Friday in an email response that he had no information to share at this point.

Rachel Hurst, corporate affairs manager for Kroger, said in an email response that she has a call with the state health department Monday.

There are more than 300,000 Michiganders living in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities whom the state is working to vaccinate.

Residents and staff in long-term care facilities currently are receiving vaccines from CVS and Walgreens pharmacies through the federal program. In Michigan, local or county health departments are assisting at facilities that weren't matched with one of those pharmacies.

More than 29,200 coronavirus cases have been reported among nursing home residents and staff, with 3,683 residents (28% of the state's 13,132 deaths) and 34 staff dying so far in the pandemic.

Many long-term care residents are rolling up their sleeves to get the vaccine in hopes of being able to see family and friends again —  in person. Staff have been more reluctant to receive the shots.

Michigan switched from the Pfizer vaccine to the Moderna vaccine for its long-term care facilities.

More:Michigan's last-minute switch delayed COVID-19 vaccines for nursing homes 

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said the switch was made to "maximize the use of the doses of both vaccines being made available to Michigan. At the time of the decision, we understood that we would have more doses of Moderna vaccine available than Pfizer and, because of the nursing homes, we made this switch," spokeswoman Lynn Sutfin said in  a prior email response.

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She said the switch was made to more quickly meet federal pharmacy program requirements for beginning vaccinations and to inoculate as many long-term care residents as quickly as possible.

In Michigan, Sutfin said there are 417 skilled nursing facilities, where vaccinations started Dec. 28, and 4,903 additional eligible facilities in the federal program, such as assisted living, where inoculations began Monday.

Pharmacies visit the facilities three times to provide shots.

According to the state's COVID-19 vaccine dashboard, 10,215 vaccines have been given out in the long-term care program as of Thursday.

However, CVS said, as of Tuesday, its pharmacists and pharmacy technicians had given 11,385 first doses of the vaccine to residents and staff at nursing homes as well as 470 vaccines in assisted living and other long-term care facilities.

More:CVS vaccinates 12,000 nursing home, assisted living residents for COVID-19 in Michigan

CVS said it will be doing vaccinations in more than 1,000 skilled nursing and assisted living facilities in Michigan and could inoculate about 140,000 people statewide during a 12-week time frame, company spokesman Charlie Rice-Minoso said.

Sutfin said during the first week, 176 clinics were conducted statewide with 271 clinics planned by CVS and Walgreens this week. She said more than 1,100 first clinics have been scheduled by the two pharmacies.

Sutfin said CVS and Walgreens also are committed to serving any facility within 75 miles of one of their stores.

Starting Monday, more people in Michigan will be eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, including those age 65 and older, teachers and law enforcement officers. But local health departments say they can only make appointments for the very limited supply of doses they are getting each week from the state.

The state health department asked county health departments to allocate 75% of vaccines for those age 65 and older and 25% for front-line workers, Leddy said.

"The state of Michigan has a plan to put 50,000 shots in arms per day, but it will require the federal government to increase the number of shots allocated for Michigan, which is why Gov. Whitmer joined other governors across the nation asking the federal government to release the second half of vaccines that are currently being held by the federal government," he said.

"If the federal government releases these vaccines, we can ramp up vaccine administration to priority groups, which will then help us open up the process faster to the general population. Our goal is to administer every shot that is distributed, so that there are no unused shots left over."

Staff writers Susan Selasky and Georgea Kovanis contributed to this report.

Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @challreporter.

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