![]() ![]() ![]() The state announced on Friday it expects CVS and Walgreens to have visited all sites to provide at least their first doses by Feb. They visit a third time for anyone who missed an earlier shot. The companies give second injections three to four weeks after the first shots. Under the plan, the pharmacies prioritize skilled-nursing facilities, then assisted-living and other congregate homes. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last fall contracted with CVS and Walgreens to inoculate people with ties to long-term care across the country. “The distribution of the vaccines to long-term care settings, where the most vulnerable population resides, is not fast enough and it must, must improve,” said Karen Messer, head of LeadingAge Illinois, which lobbies for 380 congregate-care sites, mostly nonprofits. Freeman recommends they contact their doctors’ offices for recommendations and then decide whether they’d like to wait for an appointment with their own health systems or try their luck elsewhere.“Walgreens has remained on track to immunize our most vulnerable populations,” wrote Phil Caruso, a spokesman of the Deerfield-based company.Ī CVS statement said company teams are “efficiently and methodically transporting vaccines to long-term care facilities and getting them in the arms of seniors” and that the injections “are increasing daily at an impressive rate.”Īs the pharmacy giants tout their performance, industry officials and public-health leaders are voicing alarm. Some seniors and essential workers aren’t sure whether to wait for invitations from their health systems or hunt for appointments across all the available sites, grabbing whatever they can find first. The system has been sending messages to some of its eligible patients inviting them to schedule appointments, but it takes time to get everyone who’s eligible into that invitation system, he said. Richard Freeman, regional chief clinical officer. Loyola Medicine has enough doses to vaccinate about 900 people a day, for now, said Dr. Some systems, such as Loyola Medicine, began vaccinating people in phase 1b Monday, while others have not started. Many seniors and essential workers also will be able to sign up with their health systems for inoculations, but those systems are not all moving at the same pace. “I think it would be really nice to have a more equitable system where you didn’t have to try to play all these games because it’s really going to weed out people who can’t do this.” “Their younger kids, ages 18 to 50, are basically devoting hours of time a day to trying to get appointments for their parents,” Bloomgarden said. “People are panicking about whether they’re going to miss their opportunity,” said Bloomgarden, who likened the process to getting opening-night tickets to the play “Hamilton.” This past weekend, the group started widely distributing on social media a list of places to get vaccinated. Eve Bloomgarden, an endocrinologist at Northwestern Medicine and a co-founder of the Illinois Medical Professionals Action Collaborative Team, which is a group of Illinois doctors and health care professionals working to address pandemic-related issues. Older people who aren’t tech-savvy are particularly worried about scheduling their appointments, said Dr. She said the system seems unfair because not everyone has a relative who can make an appointment in the middle of the night, and not everyone can drive to a distant location for a shot. “It was all we could do, and we just wanted to make sure we get them their shots,” Halperin said, noting that her parents and in-laws are all older than 75 and, in some cases, have serious health conditions. She said she knows people who live in the Chicago area who are traveling as far as Peoria and Carbondale for appointments. She was able to get four different appointments for them - at four different Walgreens in four different towns - for this week. Keri Halperin, 49, of Northbrook, stayed up until midnight one night last week to schedule appointments for her parents and in-laws at Walgreens. Enormous demand, coupled with slim supplies of vaccines, has sent many Chicago-area residents into a frenzy trying to find appointments. ![]()
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