Starbucks and Microsoft to Partner with Washington State to Boost COVID-19 Vaccinations

Washington State's Governor Jay Inslee announced yesterday a series of new initiatives to help enhance COVID-19 vaccinations of the state, including partnerships with companies such as Microsoft and Starbucks.

According to CNN, state officials revealed that Washington established a 'public-private partnership' between the health department and other businesses, as well as labor and health care leaders. The said alliance is dubbed as the "Washington State Vaccine Command and Coordination Center."

Members' focus in this partnership is on various aspects of the vaccine's distribution, said the governor. He added that they are also to coordinate "all available resources" to provide more vaccines in the Washington state in the fastest and most effective way possible.

Kaiser Permanente for instance will be responsible for assisting in planning for mass vaccination clinics. Starbucks, on the other hand, will be responsible for the efficiency of operations.

Commitment of Companies

During the news conference, Kevin Johnson, Starbucks President and CEO said, they are not a health care organization but Starbucks does operate over 30,000 stores at scale, serving around 100 million customers each week, not to mention, "we have a world-class team of human-centered design engineers" working under the state, as well as the health care providers.

Meanwhile, Brad Smith, Microsoft president said, the company is providing its expertise in technology and added, he is confident that they can bring "vaccines to everyone faster because of this initiative."

The company president also said, since Microsoft's buildings do not all have employees due to the pandemic, they are partnering with local hospitals so they can set up vaccine administrations on their campus and offer support staff.

The goal, Smith explained, is to make this, next month, one of the vaccination locations. He also clarified that it is not going to be "a site for Microsoft employees." It will be a location for people in the community.

Other members of the partnership which include Costco, which will help deliver the vaccine by pharmacies, and employee unions to help coordinate volunteer vaccinators.

Commenting on this major alliance, Washington's health department secretary Dr. Umair Shah said in a statement, "No one can do it alone."

Together, he added, with the measures the governor and others have announced, they commit to "make the forward progress" the people of the state deserve to get the virus under control and shield "everyone with this life-saving vaccine."

More Initiatives Announced

Among other initiatives, Gov. Inslee said, effective immediately, those aged 65 years and above and those 50 years old and above living in multigenerational households will now be qualified as vaccine recipients.

The reason for such is obvious, the official explained. Roughly 80 percent of all deaths from COVID-19 in Washington have happened to individuals aged 65 years and above.

Therefore, the governor elaborated, their prioritization for the vaccine evidently reflects the need to shield the most susceptible Washingtonians.

The governor also announced the state is also establishing mass vaccination sites with the National Guard's help and has launched a new online tool, Phase Finder, that helps residents determine if they are qualified for the COVID-19 vaccinations.

Online Tool Crashing

After the announcement on the online tool, the Washington health department announced too, that a lot of residents were visiting the site that officials were receiving reports that "it is crashing for some folks," the news site reported.

Health officials encouraged residents via Twitter to continue trying to access Phase Finder and try "taking a break" then, coming back, a little later.

The governor said, the goal is to ultimately provide vaccines to roughly 45,000 residents every day. He elaborated that the goal is higher than the current vaccine allocation of the state by federal government "by several fold."

Inslee also explained, they want to establish an ambitious goal of building capacity to vaccinate the said number of people and the reason for is that "we always want our capacity for vaccinations," to match or exceed the quantity of doses they are actually receiving from federal government.

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