The State of North Carolina has expanded its COVID-19 vaccine data dashboard to include information about those who’ve been vaccinated through the federal long-term care and retail pharmacy programs.

Users will now be able to view the information regarding people who have been vaccinated through these federal pharmacy programs – with a demographic breakdown by county, race, ethnicity, gender and age group of those getting the vaccinations through stores like Walgreen’s, CVS and other pharmacies.

The information can be found on the tabs “Summary Data” and “Demographics Data” at the NC COVID-19 Dashboard at https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard

A drop-down menu allows users to view data for North Carolina providers or federal pharmacy programs – or view the programs together.

As of Wednesday, March 23, the data showed that 32 percent of adult North Carolinians have been at least partially vaccinated against COVID-19 and that about 19 percent of adult North Carolinians have been fully vaccinated. 

A Wednesday, March 24 press release from state health officials explained the relationship between the government vaccination programs and the ones taking place in drug stores and other venues.

“Federal pharmacy program data include vaccine doses distributed through the Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care Program and Federal Retail Pharmacy Program for COVID-19 Vaccination,” the release states. “The long-term care program is a partnership between the federal government and CVS and Walgreens to vaccinate individuals in North Carolina’s long-term care facilities, and the federal retail program provides doses to be administered through national and independent pharmacy partners such as CVS and Walgreens. Vaccine for federal pharmacy programs is provided directly from the federal government and does not come out of the states’ weekly allocation of doses.”

Collecting the data from a multitude of vaccine distribution systems in a timely manner can be tricky. State of North Carolina providers – such as local public health departments – are required to use the COVID-19 Vaccine Management System to register patients before giving vaccines.

 However, federal vaccine providers use their own tracking systems. Therefore, some data from federal pharmacy programs on race, ethnicity, gender and/or age group may be missing or may be disclosed at a different rate than that of North Carolina providers.

There’s another caveat to the new dashboard information.  It doesn’t include some data on vaccines administered through other federal channels like the US Department of Defense, Indian Health Services and Veterans Health Administration.   State officials are currently working with federal officials to share data on North Carolinians who are being vaccinated through those other federal channels.