When Will Updated COVID-19 Vaccines Become Available

According to reporting by Roll Call's Ariel Cohen, the U.S. administration announced in In March 2022 to keep providing free COVID-19 vaccines to every member of the public, it put the onus on insurers to negotiate the price of the vaccines.

On August 18, 2023, Cohen wrote, 'To prepare for insurers taking on price negotiation and to make sure the uninsured and underinsured still had access, the Biden administration announced in April of this year that it was setting up a partnership with pharmacies to deliver shots to the uninsured and underinsured at no up-front cost. 

The so-called "bridge access program" would be a $1.1 billion public-private partnership between the U.S. CDC and pharmacies. 

But months later, the government hasn't been able to finalize partnerships with any pharmacies.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmacies administered a significant percentage of all vaccinations.

The Federal Retail Pharmacy Program for COVID-19 Vaccination is one part of the U.S. federal government's strategy to ensure access to COVID-19 vaccines for the American public.

As of July 21, 2023, more than 305 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered and reported by Federal Retail Pharmacy Program participants in the U.S. This includes 8 million doses administered onsite to long-term care facilities in the early days of the COVID-19 vaccination program.

The CDC said it planned to negotiate contracts with CVS, Walgreens, and eTrueNorth to provide pharmacy-based vaccination services to uninsured adults in low-access areas and areas of low vaccination coverage.

But the companies are still in contract negotiations with the government, and it's unclear when contract negotiations will be finalized.

"All of these are still in contract negotiation, so it's really difficult to see what the implementation of this program's going to look like in pharmacy," said Edward Salaguinto, a pharmaceutical constant to the California Department of Public Health.

The CDC is now targeting mid-October 2023 to get the pharmacy program up and running, according to multiple individuals working on the program — which could be about a month after the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines are expected to become available.