FEMA seeks bids on $3 billion in contracts for Covid vaccine centers

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is seeking bids on two contracts worth $3 billion to hire thousands of medical personnel to help staff federal and state Covid vaccine sites around the country.

The agency expects to start taking bids as soon as next week and hopes to award the contracts in early to mid-March, according to a 13-page description of the contract released this week to gauge industry interest. A representative for FEMA confirmed to CNBC that the agency is “proactively engaging with industry” to prepare to help state and federally managed vaccination sites administer the shots.

President Joe Biden announced last month his administration’s plan to deploy FEMA and other federal personnel to build and help staff Covid vaccine sites in a move to ramp up the pace of vaccinations. But the number of people trained and certified to actually administer the shots has been a constraint.

FEMA said the $3 billion will help pay for an estimated 5,000 licensed medical workers who will be deployed to various vaccination sites across the country. The contracts will likely run for six months but could be extended to 18 months if needed, FEMA said.

FEMA plans to divide the contracts into two territories covering the East and West. Facilities that could receive staffing through the contracts include local and community-based hospitals, state-managed sites as well as federally supported and federally managed sites, FEMA said.

The contractors, FEMA said, will be responsible for ensuring proper storage and handling of all vaccine doses at their sites. The personnel will also prepare and administer the shots as well as observe patients after they’ve been immunized in case of adverse reactions. Other administrative work such as scheduling appointments and receiving patients, however, will fall on the site’s own staff, not that of the contractors, FEMA said.

Considering the projected timeline of the awards, the task orders will likely be used to ramp up vaccinations this spring as the government opens up eligibility for the vaccines to more of the population. The federal government is already launching an initial rollout this week of its partnership with a handful of retail pharmacies to increase the number of sites administering the shots.

Those pharmacy chains, such as CVS Health and Walgreens, have been staffing up eligible vaccinators for months in anticipation for the rollout. FEMA’s anticipated task orders also will likely help publicly run sites to increase their capacity to administer shots.