SPRINGFIELD, Mo (KY3) – Missouri has officially entered a new phase in its COVID-19 vaccination plan.
Monday marks the beginning of Phase 1B, Level 2, which focuses on helping pregnant women or adults over the age of 65 who are at risk for serious coronavirus-related diseases. People with intellectual or developmental disabilities are also eligible.
If you are not in these categories, you may need to wait a while.
“We are constrained by the amount of vaccine we receive,” said Dr. Randall Williams, director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. “We have no control over this, so what we have is to make sure that as soon as we get it, it’s distributed.”
As of Sunday, about 200,000 vaccines have been administered statewide. It is far from the number of people who are now eligible to receive it.
“As you can imagine, universe 1B, Tier 1 and 2 and 1A, is close to 3 million people,” said Dr. Williams. “This is half the state of Missouri.”
But the supply of vaccines received was slow, which Dr. Williams said is not unexpected.
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we only get 70,000 vaccines a week, or 74,000-80,000 I think now,” Dr. Williams said.
This means that most will have to wait to receive it, even after they sign up.
“We will need people to be patient as we work through that universe of three million people,” he said.
But even though it has been a slow process so far, Dr. Williams has hope for the future.
“As we look around the state and see the morbidity and mortality caused by the virus, we are extremely grateful that we have a tool now that we believe will take us to Missouri in a much better place and fairly quickly, I think until May. or June ”.
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