Iowa House Members Advocate for Iowa Community Health Centers' Inclusion in Federal COVID-19 Vaccine Partnership

Press Release

Today, February 11th, 2021, the Iowa House Delegation sent a bipartisan letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary-Designate Xavier Becerra and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky urging the Biden Administration to include Iowa's federally qualified community health centers (FQHCs) in their direct vaccination partnership program. This program, currently in pilot, will send direct allocations of the COVID-19 vaccines to FQHC's and enable them to operate as vaccination sites. These doses are in addition to the state's regular federal allocation.

The lawmakers wrote: "FQHCs are already positioned as the best potential vaccination sites with which the federal government could partner. They stand ready and able to administer COVID-19 vaccines to our most vulnerable constituents -- and they should be given the opportunity to do so. Iowa, in particular, has a strong FQHC network that is well-integrated into their local communities, including the rural and lowest-income areas in the state. As such, while we recognize the Administration needed to roll out this program with a pilot group, we believe a grave oversight was made in choosing to leave Iowa's community health centers out of the first 25 selected to receive direct vaccination support from the federal government."

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