The Vaccine Rollout Has Been A Mess. Real Estate Can Help Fix It

For the past 10 months, the real estate world has been pointing to the coming of the vaccine as the industry’s rescue. Experts are now saying that including real estate in the sales process could be the best way to improve on the lackluster adoption of the vaccine.

To effectively vaccinate populations enough to achieve herd immunity, the federal government must leverage existing supply chains, while state and local governments should work with real estate to use empty storefronts and offices as vaccination points, logistics and health experts say.

“[Real estate] is in business with location, location, location, ”said Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the City University of New York, in an interview. “They can play an important role in identifying vaccination sites and creating vaccination sites.”

So far, the nationwide rollout has been a mess. Even before the vials reached the U.S., the public health community warned that lack of planning could jeopardize vaccination efforts. Still, the federal government’s guidelines for mobilizing a vaccine movement have been sparse and non-specific.

States had to create their own distribution plans, and the nation fell far short of its goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by the end of 2020. Around 12.3 million Americans had been vaccinated by the end of last week, Reuters reported.

The lack of public-private partnerships and cross-sector collaboration in the sales process was a big factor in the delay, according to experts. Many government sales task forces across the country rely solely on the expertise of medical providers and other health systems, and not on other parts of the business community.

“In my view, we need to move quickly out of the health sector for vaccine distribution,” said Dr. Massachusetts General Hospital chief physician Katrina Armstrong told Bisnow. “If we leave it to the health sector alone, I worry that we will keep fighting.”

In New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo’s sales task force includes medical providers, state officials, and nonprofits, the method of sales has been opaque. State Senator James Skoufis, a Democrat who represents three Hudson Valley counties, told Bisnow that during a hour and a half-hour meeting between lawmakers and the health commissioner, lawmakers could not get a “straightforward answer” to the details of the state’s distribution plan.

He had heard complaints about the system from both individual constituents trying to obtain the vaccine and from vendors close to him. The federal government “bears a large part of the blame,” especially when it comes to vaccine supplies, Skoufis said, but he believes the state has also been completely unprepared.

“It’s noteworthy because we’ve known the vaccines are coming for almost a year,” he said. “We had months to prepare.”

Courtesy of Dr. Katrina Armstrong

Massachusetts General Hospital Senior Physician, Dr. Katrina Armstrong

Other states like West Virginia have seen success, largely due to their ability to turn away from the general federal plan and develop one that meets the needs of the people in the state, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The far-reaching problems of the vaccination process across the country range from poor communication to a lack of effort to combat suspicion about the vaccine to inaccessible vaccination sites.

Health professionals and real estate officials alike hope that newly-inducted President Joe Biden, who has made fighting the coronavirus his top priority and has put in place a clear federal distribution plan, will bring the private sector into discussion.

Amazon has already offered to lend a hand. On Wednesday, officials from the e-commerce giant sent a letter to Biden saying he was ready to help “vaccinate 100 million Americans in the first hundred days” of his presidency.

Companies like Amazon, which are leaders in sales, could be key. The way the system works now, the federal government distributes vaccines to states and then each state distributes them to providers, experts say. Because of the geographic challenges, communities are struggling to get the vaccine directly to patients.

“With a test site on one side of the highway, we need to understand how to get the vaccine to those on the other side of the highway,” Lee said. “That is crucial.”

Private sector real estate has spent decades perfecting the art of distribution to deliver goods to large swathes of the population quickly and efficiently, say logistics real estate experts. There are even e-commerce retailers like Express Scripts that are specifically focused on making medicines available to the public.

“In theory, we’re not starting from scratch,” said Michelle Comerford, a national logistics industry consultant at Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Co. “When it comes to logistics, we have companies that do just that. ”

Biden’s new administration will have to work with big companies like Walmart, Target, UPS and FedEx to make this happen, according to logistics experts.

“There was always a problem with the logistics on the last mile. However, there have been companies that have found ways to get around this, ”said Greg Boler, partner in the logistics group at Transwestern Development Co.

“[The federal government] has the power to take advantage of these larger companies that already have these last mile logistics systems in place, “Boler said.” They do this every day. You need to have these experts as part of the conversation, but it starts at the federal level. “

Some states have already realized the importance of using space and the logistics sector to get a grip on the vaccine. Washington State announced it would work with Starbucks to distribute vaccines.

Public-private partnerships have already proven to be a key element in fighting the coronavirus. It was these partnerships that pushed the federal government to develop a vaccine asap, Comerford said.

Creating small and medium-sized lots from vacant properties could also solve the geographic accessibility problem, said New York State Senator Skoufis.

“Real estate by definition has space and unfortunately, due to the pandemic, much of that space is unused,” he said. “There are all of these megasites out there, but why not partner with real estate to set up midsize locations in unused office space or retail space where they really need them?”

Some rooms are already being used in this way. In southern New Jersey, a vacated Lord & Taylor department store in a mall is being used as a vaccination center. The same thing is happening in Loudoun County, Virginia, on a gated north stream, with the county signing an eight-month $ 2 million lease with the mall owner to set up a vaccine distributor.

Local pharmacies have been looking for space to use as vaccination centers as well. New York State Pharmacist Society President Tom D’Angelo, who owns a local pharmacy in the suburbs of New York City, said he has some vacant property that he will use as a vaccination site. This could complement the use of megasites like those at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City, he said.

Tom Griggs, industrial and logistics manager for the East region at Hines, said he was “actually surprised” that empty properties have not been used more often.

“Now think of all the dead retail space,” he said. “I think real estate definitely plays a role in all of this.”

If the government works immediately with the private sector, including real estate, the outcome of the country’s vaccine distribution could change.

“If we can use this moment to let the government assist the private sector with this rollout, we can potentially get a lot more vaccines out faster,” said Armstrong.