Good News: CVS and Walgreens Have Put 5.9 Million Coronavirus-Vaccine Shots in Nursing Homes

The good news is that bit by bit, day by day, that stack of millions of distributed but not-yet-administered coronavirus-vaccine doses gets a little smaller. At the beginning of the month, it was around 20 million; yesterday morning, it was 17.2 million by the New York Times’ numbers, and this morning, it is down to 16.6 million. (Unfortunately, on the Bloomberg chart, it inched up a little, from 15.4 million to 15.54 million.)

I’ve heard some people complaining that a big portion of the backlog stems from CVS and Walgreens having a sluggish start to their efforts to vaccinate nursing homes, assisted-living centers, and other health providers. In late January, the two drugstore chains appeared to be at least a month behind schedule.

For what it’s worth, CVS says that as of 4 p.m. yesterday, the company has administered 100 percent of the first doses and 97 percent of the second doses in 7,822 “skilled nursing facilities” — and 90 percent of the first doses and 47 percent of the second doses in 37,958 “assisted living and other [long-term care] facilities.” (The two categories are classified differently depending upon the level of care residents require.) That adds up to 3.56 million doses injected into arms so far.