INDIANAPOLIS — The same day more than 100 Indiana Kroger grocery stores started offering COVID-19 vaccinations, Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted anyone and everyone who wants a vaccination will be able to get one in April.
Is that possible and what would it take to get done?
"Is it going to hurt me?" one man asked before getting a shot in the arm at a Kroger pharmacy.
The answer is "yes." But making vaccinations available in local pharmacies should also help bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control. Kroger store pharmacies are starting out with just 100 doses a week. It's a small step but a big one.
"Oh, absolutely," said D. Paul Calkins, the associate chief medical officer for IU Health. The health care system's 10 clinics are vaccinating almost 4,000 people a day.
"I think it is a tremendous step that we would make COVID vaccinations a familiar thing to people," he said.
Kroger and other store pharmacies offer vaccinations closer to homes that are easier to find, more accessible and could play a critical role in reaching an ambitious prediction from Fauci.
Appearing Thursday on NBC's "TODAY," Fauci said, "By the time we get to April, that would be what I would call, for the lack of a better wording, 'open season,' meaning everybody and anybody in any category would start to get vaccinated."
"I think he is probably right," Calkins said.
He went on to explain that reaching the goal would require millions more doses of vaccines delivered to Indiana and hundreds of millions more nationwide.
Just as important, the state would need more and bigger vaccination sites, as well as more people to administer the vaccinations.
Some communities are already preparing for mass vaccinations.
"We are going to have to step it up, though, if we are going to get everyone vaccinated in April," Calkins explained. "That's a pretty ambitious goal."
But also reachable.
Pfizer and Moderna are increasing production of their vaccines. Other vaccines are in the pipeline. And there is no letup in the lines of people eager for shots in the arm.