KENOVA, W.Va. – Griffith & Feil Drug has been in business since 1892, a family-owned, small-town pharmacy.
This isn't their first pandemic.More than a century after helping West Virginians confront the Spanish flu in 1918, the drugstore in Kenova, a community of about 3,000 people, is helping the state lead the nation in COVID-19 vaccine distribution.West Virginia has emerged as an unlikely success in the nation's otherwise chaotic vaccine rollout, largely because of the state's decision to reject a federal partnership with CVS and Walgreens and instead enlist mom-and-pop pharmacies to vaccinate residents against the virus that has killed over 395,000 Americans.More shots have gone into people’s arms per capita across West Virginia than in.