The program was scheduled to start Thursday as part as a partnership with 21 national pharmacy partners representing more than 40,000 pharmacies across the country, according to the White House.
Under the first phase select pharmacies will receive a limited supply to vaccinate priority groups for free. The CDC worked with states to pick pharmacy partners based on ability to reach people who are high-risk for severe illness from coronavirus, according to the White House.
Distribution will also expand to all 194 Kroger pharmacies in Ohio, as well as 17 new independent pharmacies, DeWine said.
An exact timeline of when the vaccine will be available at Rite Aid or all Kroger pharmacies has not been released yet.
As of Thursday, there are 878 coronavirus vaccine providers in Ohio, according to the state health department.
Next week Ohio is scheduled to receive 223,025 first doses, the governor said Thursday. It’s about 10,000 more vaccines than the state received this week.
As the state has more vaccines coming in, Ohio will bigger, mass vaccination sites, the governor said.
More than 1,161,000 people in Ohio have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of Thursday, according to the Ohio Department of Health. There have been 374,380 people in the state who have completed the vaccine.
About the Author