With COVID-19 waivers set to expire, Pitt and Duquesne pharmacy students tell Pa. lawmakers: Let us keep offering vaccines

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (April 12, 2022) — From a Giant Eagle in McKeesport, to a Rite Aid in North Huntingdon, to the Heinz Field clinic, Kathryn Makay has been administering COVID-19 vaccines all around the Pittsburgh area.

The second-year University of Pittsburgh pharmacy student was trained last year on how to administer vaccines — much sooner in her pharmacy doctoral studies than usual. She and hundreds of other pharmacy interns across the state were about to get thrown into the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ms. Makay and other pharmacy students could administer COVID-19 vaccines as part of state waivers that temporarily allowed pharmacy technicians, pharmacy interns and nursing students to administer vaccines, as the state attempted to vaccinate as many people as possible. These waivers are set to expire on June 30.