Speaker 1:
So, it is literally, the day we're taping this, almost two years to the day, the White House announced a nationwide testing program using retail pharmacy.
Shannon Penberthy:
At CVS Health, we are very focused on how do we keep our stores open? How do we keep our employees safe? How do we as a healthcare company continue to provide all the services that we do for our patients and our customers and our members?
Speaker 1:
And they were asking the pharmacy partners to stand up large scale testing sites that were run by retail pharmacies. Nothing like that had ever been done before and nothing like that existed, and within a short few weeks, stood up the first national retail testing site in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.
Shannon Penberthy:
And within a month, we had 1,000 testing sites set up.
Speaker 1:
But Operation Warp Speed very quickly turned into the development of the vaccine, and that's when Shannon Penberthy really went to work.
Shannon Penberthy:
Most of the operations of Operation Warp Speed were conducted in a room called the Vaccine Operations Center.
Speaker 3:
She was there with General Perna, General Ostrowski, all of the key operational leaders of the vaccination effort, as well as representatives from a lot of our industry partners like McKesson and Pfizer and UPS and FedEx, and also some of the ones that we would typically consider competitors, like Walgreens and Walmart being at the table as well.
Shannon Penberthy:
Everyone that was part of that group had one focus, and that was how do we get shots in arms? The morning of standup, I would report out what we expected to do that day in terms of shots, locations, number of facilities that would be seen. And then, at the end of the day, I would report out what we had accomplished, usually exceeding our goal.
Speaker 3:
She would get all of the feedback and information on the operations on our side of the house, and then she would literally leave that meeting every single day and go straight to the standup with Operation Warp Speed. She was our eyes and ears.
Shannon Penberthy:
General Sharp's team was responsible for the Vaccine Operations Center and ensuring all of the logistical things that needed to happen.
General Sharp:
We really brought together the best leadership that was available in the US government, from the White House, Health and Human Services, Department of Defense, and CVS heard that call and provided the best that they had, and Shannon was the leader that made things happen for us on a daily basis.
Speaker 3:
We were learning things at the 11th hour that were critical to our operations. The storage and handling requirements for the vaccines themselves, how many long-term care facilities we were going to go into, how many vaccines we were actually going to get from the federal government.
Speaker 1:
And in the early days of the vaccine distribution, the states controlled the distribution of the vaccine. It was really very complicated at first, and Shannon was very much a part of the team between Operation Warp Speed and CVS Health to help smooth out some of the challenges we faced.
General Sharp:
We had other retail pharmacy chains represented there in the Operation Center, but they just weren't as articulate and couldn't tell the story as well as Shannon could.
Speaker 5:
All right, are you ready?
Speaker 6:
I'm good.
Shannon Penberthy:
When I reported at Operation Warp Speed that morning, that the first vaccination had just been administered, people cheered and people cried.
We quickly realized that an experienced technician could pull additional doses out of the vials.
Speaker 3:
But none of the plans were in place around syringes or vials to be able to accommodate that extra dose.
Shannon Penberthy:
During my readout, during the standup, made the request and the plea that we receive additional syringes.
Speaker 3:
So, we were able to maximize that product and get more people protected and save more lives faster than we would've otherwise been able to do.
Shannon Penberthy:
I would say, there was a low point about a month into the vaccination process. It really started with, around January 6th, the raid on the Capitol. The other thing that was happening at that time though was series of winter storms, particularly the freeze in Texas, had a tremendous impact. They had convoys of trucks with the vaccine that were stranded.
Speaker 3:
Every day, no matter how hard things got or how crazy or unpredictable they were, Shannon was the one you could count on coming to our daily meetings with a positive attitude and making the rest of us smile. And then, making the rest of us take a step back and say, "Okay, we're going to get through this."
General Sharp:
And she was able to not only shape CVS actions, but she was also able to shape US government and Operation Warp Speed actions just by her very presence and leadership.
