In a viral tweet, an Idaho resident accused a Rite Aid pharmacist of canceling his COVID-19 vaccination appointment.
"@riteaid offers Covid vaccines and boosters in all of their locations (I scheduled the appointment online) but apparently it's up [to] the individual pharmacist to decide whether they want to give it or not," Dan Berger — a Boise, Idaho, resident who said he is immunocompromised and was about to travel internationally — tweeted Feb. 10. "What the actual f—?"
In his Twitter thread with more than a million views, Mr. Berger said a Rite Aid district manager told him Amy, the pharmacist, "rarely works at a customer facing job because of this. She was backfilling yest[erday] because they were shortstaffed." Mr. Berger asked for the pharmacist to be fired.
The pharmacist told Mr. Berger she is a "conscientious objector," according to the Idaho Statesman. The National Library of Medicine defines the term as someone who objects to inoculation against contagious diseases based on religious, moral or philosophical reasons.
Mr. Berger said Amy then called around at other Rite Aid locations since she did not want to be liable if he had reactions to the vaccine, the Idaho Statesman reported. He said she told him the booster shots at other locations were expired, but a regional pharmacy manager seemed to have dismissed this claim, the outlet reported.
A Rite Aid spokesperson told Becker's the company is "looking into this situation and will take the appropriate steps to ensure that our customers continue to receive the vaccinations they need when they want them," such as COVID-19 vaccines.