C2 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, MAY 9, 2021
COVID-19 | Vaccine rollout
CVS, Walgreens show the bulk of wasted doses
BY JOSHUA EATON AND
RACHANA PRADHAN
Kaiser Health News
Two national pharmacy
chains that the federal gov-
ernment entrusted to inocu-
late people against COVID-19
account for the lion’s share of
wasted vaccine doses, accord-
ing to government data ob-
tained by Kaiser Health News.
The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention re-
corded 182,874 wasted doses
as of late March, three months
into the country’s effort to vac-
cinate the masses against the
coronavirus. Of those, CVS
was responsible for nearly half,
and Walgreens for 21%, or
nearly 128,500 wasted shots
combined.
CDC data suggests that the
companies have wasted more
doses than states, U.S. territo-
ries and federal agencies com-
bined. Pfizer’s vaccine, which
in December was the first to be
deployed and initially required
storage at ultracold tempera-
tures, represented nearly 60%
of tossed doses.
It’s not completely clear from
the CDC data why the two
chains wasted so much more
vaccine than states and federal
agencies. Some critics have
pointed to poor planning early
in the rollout, when the Trump
administration leaned heavily
on CVS and Walgreens to vac-
cinate residents and staff mem-
bers of long-term care facilities.
In response to questions, CVS
said “nearly all” of its reported
vaccine waste occurred during
that effort. Walgreens did not
specify how many wasted
doses were from the long-term
care program.
One thing is clear: Months
into the nation’s vaccination
drive, the CDC has a limited
view of how much vaccine
is going to waste, where it’s
wasted and who is wasting it,
potentially complicating efforts
to direct doses to where they
are needed most. Public health
experts say having a good han-
Stock
Continued from C1
Alas, things rarely go that
well with a trade. And when a
stock is getting clobbered, you
fail to cut your losses , clinging
to hope of a recovery that can
prove elusive.
Tip No. 3: Sometimes the best
decision is to do nothing
It seems these days that the
term FOMO , or fear of miss-
ing out , gets bandied about a
lot. With all the news about
riches to be had in the mar-
kets — buying the likes of the
GameStop — it seems like
we should be harvesting our
share of the goods by getting
in early on the next big thing.
But in the quest to do so, we
sometimes feel a temptation
to make purchases that aren’t
really well thought out. Often,
this results in disappointing
outcomes.
Unless you are certain that
you have an investment that
you understand and makes
sense, it’s better to do noth-
ing. Nobody lost a penny on
money they didn’t invest.
dle on waste is crucial for de-
tecting problems that could de-
rail progress and risk lives.
The Pfizer-BioNTech and
Moderna vaccines, which
come in multidose vials, are
fragile and have limited shelf
lives. Overall, waste has been
minuscule: As of March 30,
the U.S. had delivered roughly
189.5 million vaccine doses
and administered 147.6 mil-
lion, including 7.7 million in
long-term care facilities, ac-
cording to the CDC.
Among other things, tracking
wasted doses helps to identify
bottlenecks where distribution
adjustments might be needed,
said Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, a profes-
sor of health policy and man-
agement at the City University
of New York. Because the fed-
eral government is footing the
bill for the country’s doses, any
waste amounts to “basically
throwing (taxpayer) money
down the chute,” he said. CVS,
Walgreens and other retailers
don’t pay for the vaccine. The
government provides it. And
under the Medicare program, it
pays providers roughly $40 for
each dose administered.
Particularly early on, offi-
cials didn’t adequately assess
where there would be demand
and set up sites in response,
Lee said — something that’s es-
pecially important when trying
to jab as many people as possi-
ble as quickly as possible.
“If you think of any business,
they’re going to determine
where the customers are first,”
he said. “It’s not just a matter of
loading up vaccine and going
to a place.”
Kaiser Health News’ sur-
vey of vaccine waste is based
on public records requests to
the CDC and all 50 states, five
major cities, Puerto Rico and
Washington, D.C. Combined,
the records document more
than 200,000 wasted doses.
However, the data has clear
shortcomings. Data from 15
states, the District of Columbia
and multiple U.S. territories are
the influence of emotions on
trading is to establish disci-
plines — like sell targets —
that create a process in place
of trading on whimsy.
CVS and
Walgreens didn’t
have a clue when it
came to interacting
with nursing homes.
Missed opportunities
for vaccination
in long-term care
invariably result in
deaths.”
— Dr. Michael Wasserman
not included in the CDC’s re-
cords. And, in general, waste re-
porting has been inconsistent.
In addition to the CDC,
33 states and D.C. provided
at least some data to Kaiser
Health News in response to
those records requests. They
reported at least 18,675 ad-
ditional doses that have been
wasted across 10 jurisdictions
not represented in the CDC
figures. They include 9,229
doses wasted in Texas as of
March 26 and 2,384 in New
Hampshire as of March 10.
An additional eight states
told Kaiser Health News of
more wasted doses than they
reported to the CDC.
But no city or state comes
close to the waste reported by
CVS and Walgreens, whose
long-term care vaccination
drive was criticized by some
officials as slow and ineffective.
Among nursing home staffers,
a median of 37.5% reported
they got a shot in the first
month, according to a Febru-
ary CDC study.
“To me, this ultimately cor-
relates with just poor plan-
ning,” said Dr. Michael Wasser-
man, immediate past president
of the California Association of
Long Term Care Medicine and
a critic of the corporate effort.
Wasserman said the compa-
nies’ approach was too restric-
tive, and their unfamiliarity
with long-term facilities’ needs
harmed the effort.
“CVS and Walgreens didn’t
have a clue when it came to in-
teracting with nursing homes,”
he said. “Missed opportuni-
ties for vaccination in long-
term care invariably result in
deaths.”
A CVS spokesperson,
Michael DeAngelis, in an
email blamed wasted doses
on “issues with transportation
restrictions, limitations on re-
directing unused doses, and
other factors.”
“Despite the inherent chal-
lenges, our teams were able to
limit waste to approximately
one dose per onsite vaccination
clinic,” he added.
Walgreens said its wastage
amounted to less than 0.5%
of vaccines the company ad-
ministered through March 29,
which totaled 3 million shots
in long-term care facilities and
5.2 million more through the
federal government’s retail
pharmacy partnership.
“Our goal has always been
ensuring every dose of vac-
cine is used,” company spokes-
person Kris Lathan said in an
email. Before scheduled clinics,
she said, Walgreens would base
doses it would need on regis-
trations, “which minimized
excess and reduced overesti-
mations.”
Vaccine waste could increase
in the coming weeks as offi-
cials shift tactics to inoculate
harder- to-reach populations,
public health experts say.
“I think we are getting to a
place where, to continue to be
successful with vaccination,
we’re going to have to tolerate
some waste,” said Dr. Marcus
Plescia, chief medical officer
of the Association of State and
Territorial Health Officials.
People unwilling to travel to a
mass-vaccination site might go
to a primary care physician or
smaller rural pharmacy that
might not be able to use every
dose in an open vial, he said.
The reasons states gave for
waste varied, from broken vi-
als and syringes to provider
storage errors, to leftover doses
from open vials that couldn’t
be used.
The largest waste incidents,
in which hundreds of doses
were lost at a time, tended to be
due to freezer malfunctions or
workers leaving doses at room
temperature too long.
But state records also regis-
ter the little things that can go
wrong.
On Dec. 16, the public health
department in Gunnison
County, Colorado, lost a single
dose of the Pfizer vaccine when
someone bumped into a table
and a vial spilled. On Jan. 5, the
Tri-County Health Department
in Westminster, Colorado, re-
ported that it wasted a Mod-
erna dose because a hypoder-
mic needle bent.
Remi Graber is a registered
nurse who has vaccinated peo-
ple at mass sites and commu-
nity health clinics in Rhode
Island. They said it’s not un-
common for a vial to have one
too many or one too few doses,
which can lead to a dose being
counted as wasted. There are
also sometimes syringe prob-
lems that result in waste.
But Graber said the biggest
problem is people not showing
up. Once a vial is punctured,
Pfizer’s vaccine must be used
within six hours. On April 1,
Moderna announced that an
opened vaccine vial was good
for 12 hours — double what it
had been previously.
“What could happen is you
get people who just decide,
‘You know what? I don’t need
my vaccine today. I’m not go-
ing to show up,’” they said.
“Well, now we’re scrambling to
find somebody to take the vac-
cine because we don’t want to
waste it.
William Valentine, CFA, is the Co-
Chief Investment Officer of ASI Wealth
Management of Bend. He and his wife,
Jessica, have lived in Bend since 2000,
where they raised their four sons.
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Tip No. 4: Never trade when
you’re feeling emotional
If you’ve read this column
over time, you’ll recognize
a theme that I’ve hopefully
cultivated: Emotions are the
enemy of the investor. That’s
equally true of traders as
well.
Greed and fear cause us to
act oppositely of our interests,
and the only way to counter
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