#Starbucks to help Washington state ramp up COVID-19 vaccinations

Starbucks wants to make getting a coronavirus vaccine as easy as grabbing a pumpkin spice latte.

Washington State officials tapped the coffee giant to help them ramp up the state’s COVID-19 vaccination capacity with the goal of inoculating 45,000 people a day.

The Seattle-based chain has a team of engineers helping state officials set up vaccination centers that can efficiently inoculate large numbers of people without sacrificing patients’ comfort, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said.

“As a state and as a nation, building vaccination capacity puts us in a position to play offense with this global pandemic,” Johnson said at a press briefing Monday.

Other Washington-based companies including Microsoft and Costco will also play a role in the state’s vaccination campaign along with the National Guard and health-care groups such as Kaiser Permanente, Gov. Jay Inslee’s office said.

Washington officials are currently vaccinating between 13,000 and 15,000 people each day, according to Inslee. While the state’s goal of 45,000 daily shots would outpace its supply of 100,000 doses a week, Inslee said officials want to have more capacity in place before the feds start sending more vaccines.

Starbucks has “been pretty good at delivering coffee, with good coffee around the world,” the Democratic governor told NBC News. “They have logistical assistance, which is quite helpful, in fact, training other entities how to run a high-throughput vaccination center.”

Inslee announced the plan amid concerns about the slow pace of the vaccine rollout in the US.

The feds have distributed more than 31 million doses across the country, but only about 12 million had gotten into Americans’ arms as of Friday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“At this rate of vaccinations, it’s going to take six, seven, eight years for this country to get vaccinated, and we can’t think that’s an acceptable pace,” Johnson told NBC.

With Post Wires