Huge number of Kansans will soon be eligible for COVID shot. But supply is in doubt
Kansas health officials hope to finish the first phase of COVID-19 vaccinations by the end of January, meaning much of the general public should get its turn soon after. But that timing depends on when the state receives more vaccine, they cautioned.
So far, state officials have sent 190,000 doses of vaccine to 278 sites across the state, Dr. Lee Norman, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said Tuesday during a daily COVID-19 briefing sponsored by the University of Kansas Health System.
Health care workers and residents and staff at long-term care facilities are being vaccinated first as part of the state’s final five-phase plan, published at kansasvaccine.gov.
“It’s going to take time to march through these phases,” Norman said. “Phase 2 is the biggest number of people, and we’re going to be stuck in Phase 2 vaccinating people for probably at least a couple of months.”
Phase 2 is vast. It includes people 65 and older, people who live in group settings and “high-contact” critical workers, a list that includes firefighters, police officers, grocery store workers, workers in kindergarten through 12th-grade schools and child care centers — teachers, custodians and other staff — transportation workers, U.S. Postal Service employees and people who work in retail and agriculture.
Homeless shelters, emergency shelters and safe houses, and correctional facilities are also included in Phase 2.
The fifth and final phase is expected to begin rolling out in June, according to the state’s timeline.
Missouri is currently in Phase 1A, which also places health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities at the front of the line. After that comes first responders, the elderly, people with underlying health problems, essential workers and, finally, the general public.
The vaccination process will look different from county to county, Norman said. “We have 105 counties, and every county is not going to act the same as very other county,” he said.
“We already have some counties that have gone all the way through Phase 1 and all their health care workers and long-term care facilities persons and staff are vaccinated.”
Counties have been authorized to share vaccine with neighboring communities because “we don’t want vaccine on shelves and we don’t want vaccine to be wasted,” said Norman.
Counties that are ready to start vaccinating people 65 and older, who come in Phase 2, “can go ahead and move into the next phase,” he said.
But all of that is dependent on when doses arrive. This week the state will receive 22,000 vaccine doses, Norman said.
That’s 17,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine, which will be the first of two doses for those who receive them, and 5,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which “will be second doses for people who got the Pfizer vaccine three weeks ago,” Norman said.
He said Kansas has sent out doses as soon as they arrived and hasn’t held back any for the required second shots.
“So our limiting factor is the amount of vaccine we get,” he said. “We’ve got 278 vaccinating sites. We have the capacity to double that and to go to mass vaccination sites, but why set up a mass vaccinations when you don’t have any vaccine?”
Supply is already a problem in some places, including Johnson County. Officials there warned residents that demand for vaccines for health care workers has exceeded supply, which in turn could delay getting shots to the general public.
More than 25,000 health care workers alone have registered for vaccination, but the Johnson County health department said Friday it had received 4,000 doses from the state since Dec. 21.
On Tuesday, the Johnson County Department of Health & Environment said it has also recently received 1,000 doses each from KU Medical Center and the Health Partnership Clinic, and will receive another 3,900 doses from the state on Thursday. The plan is to vaccinate 1,000 health care workers every day this week.
The county is also receiving an assist from KU Medical Center, which will open a clinic this week and over the weekend to vaccinate 1,700 health care workers.
After the large Phase 2 is complete comes Phase 3: people ages 16 to 64 with serious medical conditions that put them at high risk for COVID; that includes pregnant women. Other occupations covered include utility workers, IT and communications workers.
Phase 4 includes people 16-64 with other medical conditions, including asthma, liver disease, Type 1 diabetes and obesity. Everyone else over 16, and possibly children if a vaccine for them is available by then, comes last in Phase 5.
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