These Are the States Where Costco Offers Vaccine

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 23, 8:25AM EST

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These Are the States Where Costco Offers Vaccine — © YvanDube / Getty Images

The COVID-19 death toll has crossed the tragic 500,000 milestone in America. Most scientists and medical experts believe that at least one variant of the disease could start to push confirmed case counts upward again. The ways to prevent that aggressively include standard social distancing and masks, along with a faster rollout of the two vaccines approved so far by the federal government. A number of pharmacy chains have joined the distribution effort. So has huge discount retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST | COST Price Prediction).

Among the largest problems with vaccine distribution remains scarcity. Some states still have a very limited supply, and that will not change soon. Only 13% of America’s adult population has been given at least one dose of vaccine. Less than 6% have received two shots. In all, 75,205,940 doses have been delivered and 64,177,474 shots have been given nationwide.

The rate of vaccination varies widely by state. In Alaska, 21% of residents have received at least one dose, aided by special programs for veterans and indigenous populations. In Utah, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, the figure is 11%, the nation’s lowest rate.

Costco announced its vaccine distribution plans recently. It says that it will offer supply as available, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. It will prioritize groups at the top of the list in most states. That is, those over 65, health care workers and people with preexisting conditions.
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Costco specifically asks that people do not contact its stores. Availability is posted online. Its management added that most of the vaccines available will come from Moderna.

Currently, Costco’s website shows it will offer vaccines in California, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington and Puerto Rico. No specific locations are listed.

To emphasize how little vaccine is available in some of the states where Costco offers it, note that in New York, only locations in New York City are available. In California, four counties are listed, including hard-hit Los Angeles County, the largest in the country by population. Oregon has 13 locations, and Puerto Rico has four.

As a measure of how hard the vaccine is to find in some areas, Costco has a sprawling store footprint. Its total store count is 803 locations, of which 558 are in the United States and Puerto Rico. Tens of millions of new doses of vaccine will be available in the next several months. Presumably, most Costco stores will become places where people can be vaccinated then.

The Costco announcement points to two things. The first is that America’s largest pharmacies and big-box retailers will be part of the vast number of places people can receive shots. The other is how little vaccine there is now.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.