National Guard helps Missouri set up 9 mass COVID vaccine sites. But supply is limited
Missouri plans to establish mass coronavirus vaccination sites across the state, even as top officials acknowledge demand for shots far exceeds supply.
The state Department of Health and Senior Services, with assistance from the Missouri National Guard, will set up nine sites — one in each Highway Patrol region — and will deploy vaccination teams to areas where access to the sites may be limited.
The operation, announced by Gov. Mike Parson on Wednesday, may help boost vaccinations in the weeks and months ahead. But for now, by Parson’s own admission, the number of doses coming into Missouri remains extremely limited.
“The National Guard has already begun the process of securing these sites and will start administering vaccines by the end of the month,” Parson said at a news conference.
Each team will be able to administer up to 2,500 doses a day, Parson said. Thirty National Guard personnel will be assigned to each site to help.
The first site will be in southeast Missouri and set up by this weekend, Parson said, with others following by the end of the month. But additional details, such as where the sites will be located and when they will come online, weren’t available on Wednesday.
COVID-19 continues to spread across the state, but officials have pointed to encouraging signs in recent days, noting the absence of a significant spike in cases following the holidays. Missouri over the past week has had among the fewest cases per person of any state, said Randall Williams, director of the state Department of Health and Senior Services.
“That is a testament, again, to the people of Missouri taking those measures,” Williams said, referring to precautions such as mask wearing and social distancing.
Still, Missouri has reported more than 12,000 cases over the past week and 54 additional deaths. Parson and others also acknowledge hospitals remain strained as well.
When vaccine doses began arriving in Missouri in December, the state authorized vaccinations for medical personnel as well as long-term care residents and workers. Last week, first-responders, such as paramedics, police and firefighters, were added in.
As of this week, anyone 65 and older and adults at increased risk for severe illness are eligible. But shots for the approximately 2.5 million Missouri residents who fit those categories have been scarce.
More than 265,000 doses have been administered so far, with 152,000 additional doses from the federal government expected to arrive over the next two weeks, Parson said. Those numbers represent only a small fraction of the state’s total population.
“It is important for all Missourians to understand that until vaccines become more widely available, they will be administered on a very limited basis,” Parson said.
The state health department has created a map that shows more than 1,200 sites across the state that will offer the vaccine, even as the website cautions the supply is limited.
Locations in the Kansas City area include hospitals — Children’s Mercy, Truman Medical Centers, Liberty Hospital and Saint Luke’s Health System among them — local public health departments and health clinics, grocery stores including Hy-Vee and Price Chopper and big-box retailers such as Costco and Sam’s Club.
(St. Joseph Medical Center is on the map, but officials there say they are only vaccinating employees.)
Once Missouri moves to the next phase of vaccine distribution, essential workers, such as child care workers and teachers, will become eligible.
The Star’s Lisa Gutierrez contributed reporting
This story was originally published January 20, 2021 at 6:11 PM.
