Apple is looking to launch its own COVID-19 vaccination effort

What a way to get people to go back to the office.

What you need to know

• Apple is working on opening up its own COVID-19 vaccination program.
• The company is hoping to vaccinate its employees to take pressure off public sites.
• Apple will be working with Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. to give the shots at Apple offices.

Apple is launching its own vaccination program at campus offices to alleviate the pressure on public vaccination sites, but this will only be available for Apple employees. The tech giant will be working with Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. to give Apple employees the shots at Apple Park offices.

There is a website rolling out for staff to sign up for an appointment. Originally, Apple said that as a private company, it did not have access to COVID-19 vaccines for staff members. Previously, Apple encouraged its employees to get vaccines by offering sick leave for days missed when getting the shot and recovering from the side effects. With this new program, Apple hopes that more employees will be able to return to the offices in the coming months. However, Apple has yet to ask employees to return on-site, and this is not an imminent return to the office by signing up for a vaccination appointment, says Apple.

As of a few days ago, all adults in the United States became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine and that, in addition to an increasing amount of vaccine availability, has caused an expected uptick of appointments across the country.

Apple is apparently hoping to vaccinate its employees with its own resources in hopes that it will allow other vaccination sites to open up more appointments, which those employees would have taken up.

This is an interesting move by the company as it would most likely be the first vaccination program reserved for a single company. While on-site flu shot appointments are quite common for companies, this would be one of the first (or the first) on-site COVID-19 vaccination efforts by a company in the United States. Other companies like Amazon have been vaccinating frontline workers, and Google has helped support vaccine distribution for the general public.

There is currently no word if Apple plans to open up this program to the public. Apple has said that it expects a larger number of employees to return to the offices in June.