BLACKSBURG, Va – As more COVID-19 vaccines become available at large retail pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS, locally-owned pharmacies are also working to vaccinate people across the New River Valley.
While people across the country struggle to register for a vaccine dose at those large retailers, locally-owned Blacksburg Pharmacy has been vaccinating at least 100 people a week.
“We’re immunizing in our Christiansburg store as well, which has been mirroring about the same volume we’ve been doing. So companywide, the greatest outreach that we had in one singular week is 600 vaccines,” said pharmacist Daniel Puckett.
The pharmacy gets a mix of its own orders of vaccine but also takes any doses the New River Health District may not be able to distribute.
“If patients are closer to us and it’s more difficult for them to travel, we can reach out and touch those patients easier than they can just because of our small footprint and where we have a really good relationship with our local patients,” Puckett said.
Puckett SAID the all local health departments will switch to a centralized list for vaccinations sometime this week to make sure that no patients fall through the cracks.
“That should allow that Health District to prioritize patients better, because if one store isn’t getting as much vaccine as another as you might leave a patient behind who’s more eligible,” Puckett said.
Puckett said the pharmacy expects to start getting more doses next week.