U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, speaks to The Reflector in January 2019.
Earlier this month, Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, sent a letter to President Joe Biden expressing her concern over the lack of COVID vaccines in rural areas of Southwest Washington State, according to a news release.
In the letter, Herrera Beutler urged the administration to make distribution of vaccines to rural pharmacies a priority. She said to Biden that rural communities do not always have easy access to large chain drug stores. This lack of large pharmacy retailers puts remote communities at a disadvantage to receive COVID-19 vaccines and further underscores the need to prioritize the distribution of vaccines to small and independent pharmacies.
“…your administration announced an initiative to deliver vaccines directly to retail pharmacies throughout the United States. While I applaud this effort, big chain drugstores are limited, if nonexistent in many rural areas. For this reason, small and independent pharmacies must be prioritized for vaccine deliveries. I urge you to immediately expand the guidelines for this program to ensure that small and independent pharmacies are receiving larger allocations of vaccines so that all Americans have equitable access,” Herrera Beutler wrote in her letter.
