COVID vaccine ‘super clinic’ aims to reach the vulnerable
Price Chopper/market 32, CDPHP team up to help people get their shot
It looks like a typical supermarket pharmacy, but Price Chopper/market 32’s drug section here is also part of a new “super clinic” initiative with the CDPHP health care insurer to find and provide COVID -19 vaccinations for local seniors, or others who may not have the ability to register or get themselves to a vaccine site.
“We’re reaching out to our vulnerable members,” said Jennifer Montano, CDPHP’S manager of community pharmacy.
At this Market 32 store and one in Malta, Price Chopper/market 32 and CDPHP since last week have been contacting people who aren’t vaccinated and helping them through the process of getting a vaccine, which includes making appointments and providing rides when needed.
They use CDPHP’S membership list to phone and ask seniors or disabled people if they have gotten their COVID-19 vaccines. If not, they can sign them up and bring them to the super clinic, or part supermarket and part vaccine clinic. The initiative relies on a number of groups including Catholic Charities, local senior services and a contractor, Action Transportation, to drive people in for their vaccines if they have no car.
They are hoping to expand their reach through other Price Chopper/ Market 32 stores in the coming months.
But if Powell sounds too optimistic, investors might assume the Fed will reverse its low-rate policies prematurely. That could send bond yields rising and potentially weaken the economy as borrowing becomes costlier for companies and households.
Yet if Powell sounds worried that the job market is recovering only slowly, it might spark concerns that the Fed won’t be watchful enough about inflation pressures. That perception, too, could send bond yields rising as investors anticipate rising inflation.
Complicating the picture, the Fed last year announced a policy change in how it manages interest rates by saying it plans to keep rates near zero
“for some time” even after inflation has exceeded its 2 percent target level. The change meant the Fed is prepared to tolerate a higher inflation rate than it generally had in the past.
Previously, the Fed has often raised rates on just the prospect that inflation would rise, a policy that carried the risk of choking off a recovery.
This week’s Fed policy meeting comes as the economy’s outlook has improved significantly since it last met in late January. Job gains accelerated in February, sales at retail stores jumped after $600 relief checks were distributed at the start of the year and President Joe Biden signed his economic relief package into law last week. Average daily COVID-19 infections have also dropped precipitously, and vaccinations have accelerated, raising hopes that Americans will increasingly travel, shop, eat out and spend freely after a year of virus-induced restraint.
As a result, economists have been upgrading their outlooks, with many predicting that the economy will expand as much as 7 percent for all of 2021. That would be the fastest annual growth since 1984.
The brighter outlook has sent the yield on the 10-year Treasury note climbing as investors have dumped bonds, which are typically safe-haven investments during downturns. The yield on the 10-year topped 1.62 percent in trading Tuesday; it had been below 1 percent at the end of last year.
Still, the job market has a long way to go to a full recovery. With unemployment at 6.2 percent, the economy still has 9.5 million fewer jobs than it did a year ago.