Want the COVID vaccine in the Kansas City area? These tips will improve your chances

Starting Monday, 550,000 more Missourians will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine as the state moves into its next phase of distribution.

Translation: A half million more people can join the already frustrating, nerve-wracking hunt for the elusive shot in the arm.

With so little vaccine to go around on both sides of the state line, residents are getting creative in their quests.

People have found doses left over at the end of the day at pharmacies. They’re traveling to rural counties where supply can be greater than demand. They’re stalking websites in the dead of night and pouncing to get appointments.

Officially, you cannot be vaccinated if you are not eligible under your state’s rules, but some people who aren’t have lucked into their shots.

It’s difficult, especially for people who don’t have the time or the internet to do the research, or the transportation to head across town — or out of town — to nab doses that suddenly become available.

Supply is expected to improve, and President Joe Biden has directed states to make all adults eligible for vaccines by May 1. But many people don’t want to wait.

Kansas is currently vaccinating people in Phase 1 and 2 of its distribution plan, which includes residents 65 and older and some critical jobs, such as teachers, retail workers and home care givers — paid or unpaid.

This past week Gov. Laura Kelly said Kansas likely will not move into its third phase until April, covering other critical workers and people 16 to 64 who have severe medical risks.

Missouri has been vaccinating seniors and residents with certain medical risks. On Monday, the state will add on teachers, grocery store, transportation and agriculture workers, among others, who are eligible in its Phase 1B, Tier 3.

See the end of the story for a list of the official ways eligible people can get registered for a shot. And anyone — officially eligible or not — who scores a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine gets an appointment for the second dose.

Stalking websites

Some people have found doses by spending hours online stalking pharmacy websites and vaccine finders.

They learn tips such as this: Available appointments at participating Walmart pharmacies show up at midnight but fill up in minutes. So some people log onto the website early and refresh, or reload, the page at the stroke of midnight. (Find locations at walmart.com/COVIDvaccine.)

Also:

▪ Keep tabs on appointment availability at the Balls Food website, ballsfoodspharmacy.com (includes Hen House, Price Chopper, Sun Fresh and Payless pharmacies). Slots are posted about once a week on Fridays, a company spokeswoman said. Vaccines are currently only available at 13 pharmacies in Kansas, but Missouri pharmacies are likely to receive doses March 22 or March 29, she said.

Per the website: “When appointments are available, they will be active in the drop down menu above. Once each location has hit their maximum number of appointments for the week, when you click on the link, you will see an error message stating that there are no more appointments available for that week.”

▪ The Kansas vaccine finder is called Find My Vaccine, at kansasvaccine.gov/160/Find-My-Vaccine. The tool shows where vaccine doses are going each week but “does not provide real-time reporting on when the vaccine is available to you,” the website says. “Please contact providers to confirm vaccine availability, eligibility, location and hours prior to arriving.”

▪ Missouri lists vaccine providers at covidvaccine.mo.gov/map. Both the Kansas and Missouri websites caution about the limited supply of vaccine. “Because vaccinators are listed here does NOT mean … the identified provider has any vaccine on hand or ability to order at this time (or) has an intent to publicly distribute vaccine,” the Missouri map cautions.

Twitter’s Vaccine Watch

It’s been a little more than a week since Kansas City software engineer Peter Carnesciali — @pcarn9 — tweeted: “I built a Twitter bot to notify you when vaccine appointments are available in the area.”

And, as of Friday, he’s already gotten more than 14,000 people following his daily updates on the Twitter account @kcvaccinewatch.

It tweets out locations where vaccine appointments are available for eligible residents and, just as importantly, when they’re gone. It’s currently tracking information for several pharmacy locations, including Hy-Vee, Walmart, Sun Fresh, Price Chopper and Hen House.

But appointments disappear quickly.

As an example, on Thursday afternoon the account tweeted this: “KS: Vaccine appointments available at Hy-Vee Olathe #2 from Mar 11 to Mar 15. Sign up here, zip code 66061.”

Seven minutes later it tweeted this: “Vaccine appointments no longer available at Hy-Vee Olathe #2.”

“Tried three times and got shut out every time. And then they were all filled up,” tweeted @AllEliteTiffany.

Two national vaccine trackers:

▪ vaccinespotter.org: Vaccine Spotter scouts available appointments at select locations — Walgreens, Walmart and Hy-Vee among them — in each state. “If you don’t see locations near you right now, appointments can come and go quickly so try visiting the page at different times throughout the day,” says the website.

▪ goodrx.com/covid-19/vaccine: GoodRx collects vaccine inventory and appointments from thousands of locations across the country. New pharmacies, government locations, hospitals and others are added frequently, so users are advised to check the website often.

CVS adds Missouri

CVS Pharmacy recently expanded its vaccine program to Missouri, including some Kansas City locations. CVS is not administering vaccine in Kansas yet, according to its website, cvs.com/immunizations/covid-19-vaccine.

Shots will be administered by appointment only, based on local eligibility guidelines, says the website.

As of Sunday, all available appointments in Kansas City were booked.

Scoring a leftover dose

Sometimes, pharmacies have doses left at the end of the day. People don’t show up for appointments. Extra doses are found in vials that have been opened and must be used within hours or they have to be thrown out.

Some pharmacies will put your name on a waiting list of people who want one of those leftover doses. Some do not mind if you aren’t technically eligible; they don’t want doses to go to waste. (Full disclosure: This reporter and her editor recently got the Moderna vaccine this way at a Price Chopper pharmacy.)

But, you must be ready to get there quickly.

It can be tough to find pharmacies that are doing it, and residents have found that policies vary even within the same company, such as Walmart and Hen House. The wait lists are not publicized, and people have spent hours on the phone making calls.

Some Balls Foods pharmacies keep such waiting lists, but it’s based on “staffing capabilities,” said spokeswoman Amanda Applegate. Preference goes to people who meet eligibility rules, she said.

And all those people calling to ask about waiting lists? It’s frowned upon, at least at the corporate level. Applegate issued a plea: “Please don’t call the pharmacy. We are overwhelmed with calls.”

Not all pharmacies even offer the vaccine. County and city health department websites list participating locations.

There are “invariably” some doses left at Operation Safe mass vaccination events at Cerner headquarters in the Northland, according to Dr. Todd Beardman from North Kansas City Hospital.

“And the way we typically handle those doses is to invite the next people on the list to come down to the clinic that evening and receive a dose,” Beardman said during a briefing this week.

Organizers typically use robocalls and texts to reach eligible people who have already filled out the Operation Safe interest form.

“So look out for those if you think you’re getting close on the list and you haven’t been invited for a first dose invitation, you may receive a call or text from us.,” he said.

If there are still doses left after contacting those people, the Operation Safe Facebook page might say so, said a Clay County health department spokeswoman.

Rural outlets

Some city folks have hit the road to get the vaccine in rural communities.

Here’s one example: Earlier this month, the Iola Register in Allen County, Kansas, reported that the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas began receiving thousands of vaccine doses.

Because the clinics are federally qualified health centers, they don’t have to follow county residency rules and can offer the vaccine to people who don’t live in the communities they serve, Rob Poole, director of communications, told The Star.

People must qualify under current Kansas eligibility rules to be vaccinated, said Poole. But some people who aren’t eligible have told The Star they have snagged appointments at rural locations anyway.

Their closest clinic to Kansas City is in Pleasanton in Linn County, about 60 miles south of Overland Park. “It’s not large … maybe a 20-person staff,” said Poole. “And that’s part of the reason we’re really not set up for a mass vaccination where you drive through in your car.

“And in addition to doing vaccinations we’re still doing day-to-day health care operations, the things people came to us for before the pandemic.”

The clinics’ weekly allotment of doses exploded from a few hundred from county health departments to thousands coming directly from the federal government at the beginning of March, Poole said.

As of Thursday, the clinics had administered almost 4,100 of those federally supplied doses, he said, and they’re requesting about 4,300 a week.

The health care system initially set up a toll-free number for people to sign up, but the demand crashed the phone lines at one point, said Poole. More than 9,000 calls came in on March 5, alone the clinic reported on its Facebook page this past week.

People are now referred to a website — chcsek.org/getmyshot — with a short questionnaire that offers the option of “first available” if you can travel to a location when a dose becomes available.

The caveat: “We are now booked out for more than two weeks in some locations, so please be patient,” the health system warns on Facebook.

Again, the state vaccine websites list all the possible locations; it’s up to you to contact the provider to see what’s available.

Volunteers get shots?

Some people who have volunteered at vaccination sites have received shots, but that appears to be more luck than standard practice. Places that need volunteers post that information on their websites.

“We rarely have extra doses left at the end of a clinic; our pharmacy team only draws up as much as we need to vaccinate the appointments we have,” said Morgan Shandler, spokeswoman for AdventHealth, which operates mass vaccination clinics at Church of the Resurrection in Leawood.

“In rare instances where we may have extra doses at the end of a clinic, we would offer to our volunteers. We do keep a list of eligible patients and would call them if needed.”

At Operation Safe, vaccinations might be offered to volunteers, especially those working indoors and working face-to-face with patients, said Kelsey Neth, spokeswoman for the Clay County Public Health Center.

“However, vaccination for volunteers is not always available and is never guaranteed,” she said.

Walk-ins in WyCo

Wyandotte County has opened its three mass vaccination locations to residents who are 65 or older, no appointments needed. Just walk in.

You’ll need proof of your age, such as an ID card or birth certificate, and proof that you live in Wyandotte County, like mail or a utility bill.

The walk-in vaccinations are offered 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays at any of the Unified Government Public Health Department mass vaccination locations:

▪ Former Best Buy at 10500 Parallel Parkway

▪ Former Kmart at 7836 State Avenue

▪ Kansas National Guard Armory at 100 S. 20th St.

Where to sign up

Public health officials have advised that people who want to be vaccinated should put their name on as many interest forms — some are called surveys — as possible.

Filling out a form is not an appointment or a reservation, they caution, but it does give vaccinators a way to reach you when you are eligible and when there is vaccine available.

That, for example, is how 6,000 Jackson County residents will be invited to get their shots March 19 and 20 at Arrowhead Stadium. You must have already registered on the health department’s website to have any hope of being contacted.

Here are some of the forms available in the Kansas City area:

▪ City of Kansas City: kcmo.gov/coronavirus. If you need help filling out the form call 311 or 816-513-1313.

▪ Jackson County: jacohd.org/covid-19-vaccine-survey-tool. 816-404-9883.

▪ Johnson County: jocogov.org/covid-19-vaccine. If you need assistance or a Spanish translator, call 913-715-2819.

▪ Wyandotte County: wycokck.org/COVID-19. If you cannot complete the form online call 311 and dial 1 for the COVID Hotline.

▪ Clay County: operation-safe.com. If you already completed the form and qualify for the vaccine in Missouri but have not yet received an invitation for an appointment, you should complete the form again and provide a primary phone number and email address, organizers said. A community phone line also offers up-to-date vaccine information: 816-415-3250.

▪ Platte County: County residents should register through the Missouri COVID-19 Vaccine Navigator — find the link at plattecountyhealthdept.com. Even if you already completed the Platte County survey previously, you need to fill out the state navigator survey, too. For help, call 877-435-8411.

▪ AdventHealth Shawnee Mission: adventhealth.com/coronavirus-resource-hub for alerts about future vaccine clinics. 877-847-8747.

▪ The University of Kansas Health System: kansashealthsystem.com/COVIDVaccineForm. 913-942-6843.

▪ Truman Medical Centers/University Health: trumed.org.

▪ Olathe Health: olathehealth.org. There’s information there for people who are patients and non-patients of the health system.

▪ HCA Midwest Health hospitals: hcamidwest.com/vaccine. 816-508-4163.

▪ Saint Luke’s Health System: saintlukeskc.org/covid-19/vaccine.

This story was originally published March 13, 2021 at 5:00 AM.