U.S. pharmacies to begin distributing COVID vaccines

Walgreens and CVS pharmacies will begin delivering COVID-19 shots and the White House this week began coordinating vaccine deliveries directly to 6,500 pharmacies.

This report produced by Zachary Goelman.

At a pharmacy in Chicago, visitors rolled up their sleeves to get a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination.

Walgreens and CVS pharmacies this week will begin inoculations against the novel coronavirus.

Jayme Strnatka is this Walgreens' pharmacy manager.

"I am really excited to be a part of this, and to be a part of the solution.

It's really great when patients comes in, they are so thankful and happy to finally get the vaccine.

And it'ss nice that this is the beginning of the end of the pandemic." The White House this week began coordinating shipments of vaccines directly to 6,500 pharmacies with the goal of reaching about 40,000.

Vaccine distribution comes at a critical time in the United States with officials expecting the country's coronavirus death toll to soon reach half a million.

Stadiums have been converted into vaccination sites.

Two new centers were readied in Oakland and East Los Angeles this week to serve minority populations.

"Each of them is going to be capable to providing 6,000 vaccinations per day.” Grady Joseph is with the California Office of Emergency Services.

"Our goal is get these stood up quickly and be able to scale them to be able to meet the needs of the particular communities we're looking to serve."" The U.S. government is already ahead of pace to meet President Biden's goal of 100 million shots in 100 days.

But the roll-out has hit problems as states scramble to distribute federal deliveries.

Two months ago, state officials had a surplus, and doses sat unused.

Now, they say they face a shortfall.

Weekly shipments are now up to 11 million, up from 8.6 million when President Joe Biden took office.