COVID-19 vaccine coming to Amarillo CVS as part of Federal Retail Pharmacy program

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - The CDC has announced the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program which will be sending 1 million doses of the Moderna vaccine to 21 pharmacy chains across the nation in an effort to increase access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

In Texas, the participating pharmacies are CVS, Walmart, H-E-B, and Good Neighbor Pharmacy.

At the moment, only CVS has confirmed at least one of their 70 pharmacies chosen in Texas is in Amarillo.

Although it is a federal program, the distribution will be based on state phases. This means when the program opens next Friday, only those who fall in the Phase1A and 1B category will be eligible.

“We are currently planning to go live on February 11, with the digital scheduler where patients could schedule their appointments with the launch date of February 12,” said Akash Patel, health director at CVS. “That is dependent on vaccines allocations arriving in stores, so customers should continue to check on availability on CVS.com routinely.”

At the moment the exact store locations have not been announced. Patel adds that information will be available on their website next Thursday when the digital scheduler also becomes available.

Vaccines are limited and will only be given with an appointment which can be scheduled online, through their app, or by calling CVS customer service.

Appointments can be made in Amarillo as early as Thursday.

They also advise people to schedule both the first and second dose to ensure availability when it’s time for the second one.

While making the appointment, you will be screened and asked to input medical insurance information.

However, those who don’t have insurance can skip through it and can still get the vaccine.

Because it is a federal allocation, the vaccine will be free regardless of insurance situation.

At the moment 38,000 doses will be allocated for the 70 CVS locations participating.

They do expect to expand to more locations and open more appointments as supply becomes available.

This allocation is also different to the weekly shipments the states receive.

“What is good, is that it will not deduct from our vaccinate allocations that we have been getting,” said Imelda Garcia, associate commissioner of Laboratory and Infectious Disease Services for DSHS. “We are delighted to have even more vaccines coming to Texas to have even more options for our folks to get vaccinated.”

Although United Pharmacies are not listed under this CDC partnership for Texas, they will continue to offer the vaccine in our area with the doses they receive from the state.

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