CVS Pharmacies Now Offers Walk-In COVID-19 Vaccine Appointments

SEATTLE — CVS Pharmacies are now offering the COVID-19 vaccine for free, without any appointment at all of Washington's 40 CVS locations.

The company also offers same-day scheduling, and will let customers schedule an appointment just an hour in advance, if they really want to lock down their shot.

"We continue to orchestrate an all-out effort to vaccinate the nation against COVID-19," said CVS Health President and CEO Karen S. Lynch in a prepared statement. "Thanks to the dedication and effort of our colleagues, I am proud to say we helped achieve the President’s accelerated 100-day goal of 200 million vaccines and have administered over 17 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to date."

Making the vaccine easier to access has recently become a much more critical portion of Washington's vaccine rollout. At the Washington State Department of Health's (DOH) latest pandemic briefing, health leaders expressed concerns that there had been a "softening" in the demand for the COVID-19 vaccine.

"We're so close, but we need everybody's help," said Michele Roberts, Acting Assistant Secretary of Health. "We are concerned about what looks like some slowdown in vaccination rates and numbers."

To boost the flagging rate, the DOH says they're doing everything the can to make it as easy as possible to get vaccinated, including offering no-appointment vaccination clinics — just as CVS has now done.

It also wouldn't hurt to help CVS clear out their stock, as the company has had some trouble holding on to vaccines in the past. As KHN reports, CVS let around 90,000 doses of the vaccine go to waste as of late March. For the record, the company has says it has administered 17 million COVID-19 shots, the wasted doses represent just around half of one percent of their total allocation.

On the positive side, the company does have a high return rate. They say that more than 90 percent of their customers return to CVS for their second dose. That's been a growing concern in America, as more than five million people have now skipped their second dose entirely, the New York Times reports.

>> Find a COVID-19 vaccine appointment near you through CVS's website.