The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 182,874 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been wasted due to poor planning of the vaccine rollout, NBC News reports. Of the wasted vaccines, the CVS pharmacy chain was responsible for nearly half and Walgreens was responsible for 21 percent. More than 60 percent of the wasted doses were those supplied by Pfizer, which was the first vaccine to roll out and which incurred problems with ultracold temperature requirements. The two pharmacy chains wasted more vaccines than states, U.S. territories, and federal agencies combined, the CDC found. While it is unclear from the data exactly why the chains had such difficulties, NBC News suggests that CVS and Walgreens were leaned on heavily to vaccinate residents and staff members of long-term care facilities. CVS said that “nearly all” their vaccine waste happened during the long-term-care program.
