Talk of CDC, Dollar General Teaming Up on Vaccine Rollout
Dollar General (NYSE: DG), which operates over 17,000 stores in 46 states, according to its website, is in talks with the Centers for Disease Control to distribute the coronavirus vaccines. Dollar General’s footprint skews toward low-income and rural neighborhoods. This is a big step for the CDC’s objective of expanding access to places where people do not have easy access to healthcare facilities, or even to a Walmart (NYSE: WMT).
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Although Dollar General stores do not have pharmacies, they do have refrigeration. The CDC would provide the staff to administer the shots on site.
Dollar General has been a vaccine supporter. In February, it announced that its employees would receive four hours of pay if they received the vaccine. In most states, its workers are considered to be front-line employees, so they have priority for appointments.
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The vaccine rollout has occurred in fits and starts, with even people in populous areas scrambling to make an appointment. For people who live in remote areas or who do not have easy access to transportation, the challenge is even greater. Despite some of the initial speculation early on in the pandemic, COVID-19 is not an illness limited to people in urban areas or who live in nursing homes.
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