The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is exploring a partnership with Dollar General about the vaccine rollout. They are one of the nation's largest retailers and this could help accelerate the rollout in rural areas.

Though there are no pharmacies, there are about 16,000 locations across the country. To put that in perspective it is three times the amount of Walmarts and is more than half as many CVS and Walgreens.

"In rural areas, residents often don't have access to big-box stores," CDC director Rochelle Walensky said at the Health Action Alliance's virtual National Business Summit. "We're exploring a promising collaboration with Dollar General stores, which have locations that include refrigeration capacity within 10 or 15 miles of our rural communities in all but four states."

I think this would be an incredibly large step in the right direction. It is extremely hard to get the vaccine, but opening it up to Dollar General would allow more people to have access to the vaccine, especially in places that do not have other chains.

According to USA Today, Dollar General was one of the first major companies to announce an incentive for employees if they got the shot. They would be giving four hours of pay to their hour early front-line workers. There are no other comments from either the CDC or Dollar General, but there is a lot of promise behind the idea.

According to USA Today, the conversation about the partnership came amid the concern that many rural Americans would not, or could not, get vaccinated, which would make the pandemic last longer. So this seems like it would benefit the majority of people.

 

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