In an effort to boost the pace of administering COVID-19 vaccinations in Washington, Starbucks will be stepping in to increase state-wide distribution.
What We Know:
- Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced Monday that the state would be teaming up with Starbucks to help streamline logistics, aiming to give out 45,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses a day. As of late, 11 Starbucks employees will be using the company’s computer simulation modeling system combined with expert knowledge in labor and deployment, operations, and research and development to work full time on vaccine distribution. The governor notes that the number of employees is subject to change.
- Other Seattle-based companies like Microsoft and Costco are set to hold vaccination sites to administer up to 5,000 vaccines in one day. The state is also looking to expand drive-through vaccination sites at over 2,000 pharmacies.
- Governor Inslee backed his decision saying, “This is a unique challenge for the United States and in every state to stand up a total mobilization of our resources.”
“We did that in World War II when we built the Liberty ships here in Washington state. We reached production levels that no one could imagine because we set ambitious goals,” he continued.
- Washington currently has a population of over 7.6 million residents and has administered under 250,000 vaccines. Currently, Washington is vaccinating between 13,000 and 15,000 people each day. The state’s goal of 45,000 shots in one day would outpace the federal supply of 100,000 doses a week, but Governor Inslee claims that the state wants to have more capacity in place before federal officials start sending more vaccines.
- The plan comes amidst growing concerns over the slow vaccine rollouts occurring across the U.S. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson commented on the underwhelming efforts and lack of urgency from the Trump administration, saying, “We can’t think that’s an acceptable pace. So we have to dramatically scale this up and accelerate the progress. […] At this rate of vaccinations, it’s going to take six, seven, eight years for this country to get vaccinated.”
Let’s hope this coffee giant can bring Washington back up to speed!
