The federal government will begin shipping doses of COVID-19 vaccines to federally qualified community health centers next week, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said Feb. 9, according to CNBC.
There are 1,300 community health centers serving about 30 million people across the U.S., Marcella Nunez-Smith, MD, chair of the White House's COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force told CNBC. Two-thirds of community health center patients live at or below the federal poverty level, and 60 percent identify as racial or ethnic minorities.
"Equity is core to our strategy to put this pandemic behind us, and equity means that we are reaching everyone, particularly those in underserved and rural communities. But we cannot do this effectively at the federal level without our partners on the state and local level sharing the same commitment to equity," Mr. Zients told CNBC.
The government plans to send vaccines to at least one community health center in each state. One million doses will be divided among 250 health centers in the coming weeks, CNBC reported.
The government is also increasing the number of vaccine doses it sends to states every week. It will now send 11 million doses every week, up from 8.6 million three weeks ago.
"That is a total of a 28 percent increase in vaccine supply across the first three weeks," Mr. Zients told CNBC.
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