Your local doctor might not get access to the COVID-19 vaccine — here's why Emily Canal Healthcare workers get the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination at the Legacy Emanuel Medical Centre on December 16, 2020 in Portland, Oregon. Many independently-owned doctors offices say they don't have access to COVID-19 vaccines and have heard little from the federal or state governments about if or when they might receive doses. Hospitals, large retail pharmacies, and federally-qualified health centres are the main distributors of the vaccine, sources told Insider. So far, they have vaccinated nearly 9 million individuals in the US, according to the Centres for Disease Control. That's 11 million people less than the federal government's estimate of 20 million vaccinated Americans by the end of 2020.