JEFFERSON CITY, MO (KMOX) — The state of Missouri is responding to a Centers for Disease Control report this week about how the state is trailing the country in the rate of COVID-19 vaccinations.
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Just 4% of Missouri's population has been given the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, states the new report compiled by the New York Times based on the CDC's numbers released on Sunday. Illinois is No. 44 with 4.4%.
However, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services sees things differently, saying much of the idle vaccine supply is sitting at pharmacies waiting to be administered. A spokeswoman also says Missouri has actually given out 60% of the state's shipment, not the reported 48%.
Here is their response to KMOX:
"As we have seen in many nationwide rankings throughout the COVID-19 pandemic (ie. cases, testing), we expect rankings by state of vaccine administration to continue to ebb and flow as the difference in rates among many states is marginal. Currently, for instance, Missouri has the tenth lowest rate for new COVID-19 cases in the country with both PCR and antigen testing combined (sixth when only accounting for the state’s confirmed PCR-tested cases).
The total amount of vaccines shipped to Missouri (as of 1/25/21) are 661,400, of those 304,434 (46%) have not been reported or administered. To date, over 351,000 doses have been administered, and 4.4% of the eligible population have received at least their first dose of the vaccine.
The limited allotments that our state receives continues to limit the rate at which people are vaccinated, but we have also become aware that some of Missouri’s vaccinators have not been administering vaccinations as efficiently as we have been asking, but we are working with these providers to increase the speed at which they get vaccines into arms. With that said, state-enrolled vaccinators in Missouri have administered over 60% of the doses shipped into the state for their use.
A large amount of the distributed amount sits with the federal pharmacy partnership which was activated to serve long-term care staff and residents. To date, unfortunately, the federal partnership has administered only 17% of those shots. 332,000 doses have been allocated to this program with CVS and Walgreens. Of those 211,400 doses have been ordered by the participating pharmacies, and 56,498 doses have been administered in 920 clinics throughout the state, based on their reporting.
The State of Missouri interagency vaccination planning team is responsible for determining where vaccines go throughout the state based on the limited amount of vaccine allotted each week to Missouri. The State places vaccine orders through federal partners on behalf of providers throughout Missouri who make vaccine requests through us, and then vaccines are shipped in the days following directly to the providers who vaccinate Missourians. The State of Missouri does NOT store or distribute the vaccines and ancillary supplies."
This Friday, the state plans several more mass vaccination events in more areas. You can learn more about that plan at COVIDvaccine.mo.gov.
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