Cities left out? Missouri’s ‘mass’ COVID-19 vaccinations skip Kansas City, St. Louis

Missouri has begun what Gov. Mike Parson hailed as “mass” COVID-19 vaccination events at nine sites across the state.

Qualified residents in or near Ava, Jefferson City, Clinton and six other rural cities could obtain their first inoculation against the disease. The Missouri National Guard was part of the program.

There were no similar mass vaccination events in Kansas City or St. Louis. That’s worrisome.

Missouri officials were already facing criticism for the state’s slow rollout of vaccines. The pace has picked up to some degree, but Missouri still ranks in the lower third of states issuing shots to residents.

And Missouri’s record for vaccinating Black and other minority populations isn’t good. Black people comprise more than 11% of the state’s population, and represent 12% of the cases and 14% of the deaths from COVID-19.

Black Missourians had received only 5% of vaccine doses as of Feb. 1.

Hispanic people comprise 4.3% of Missouri, but have received just 3% of shots. Urban populations are not getting COVID-19 prevention treatments quickly enough.

In a statehouse hearing Wednesday, officials defended their system for distributing the vaccine. There were no mass vaccination events in urban areas, they said, because more than half of the state’s weekly allotment goes to health centers such as Truman Medical Center, Liberty and North Kansas City Hospitals.

The state believes those urban facilities are better equipped to inform patients and administer vaccines than a mass inoculation program would be.

It isn’t clear that’s the case. Not everyone has a prior relationship with TMC or the other hospitals. Mass vaccination events, on the other hand, are easily understood, easily advertised and can reach patients who lack computer skills or easy access to a digital device.

The optics are poor, too. Missouri health officials said Wednesday that mass vaccination events would be open to those who live outside the counties where they’re held. That means hundreds of rural residents could travel to adjacent counties for shots even if local health agencies had no vaccine to offer.

People in Kansas City and St. Louis lacked reasonable access to similar opportunities. That adds to the suspicion that Parson is more interested in helping his rural supporters than those in urban areas who voted for his opponent last November.

To be clear: This should not be a rural-urban issue. All Missourians should have reasonable access to vaccines, administered as efficiently as possible. People who live in rural Missouri are concerned they aren’t getting a fair share of the medicine either.

That concern is inevitable when there simply aren’t enough doses to go around. Missouri officials say more than 2 million residents are now eligible for shots, but the state gets only about 84,000 doses a week.

We can all do the math.

But if mass vaccinations can work in Farmington, they can work in Kansas City, too. To their credit, state officials said Monday they do want to “ramp up” those events in urban areas in the weeks ahead.

That will be critical for underserved populations. A mass event at, say, the Truman Sports Complex or the T-Mobile Center might attract hundreds of people who would not get the shots otherwise.

Missouri has struggled to execute its vaccination program, which will be critical in saving lives and reinvigorating the economy. We recognize the need for patience: Storing the medicine is complicated. Finding enough people to give the shots can be sketchy, and communicating with patients is hard.

But the state must do a better job of making the inoculation process simple, public and accessible.

This story was originally published February 5, 2021 at 11:13 AM.