Missouri’s governor says more than 3,600 Jackson County residents were vaccinated on Friday at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium, the largest state-supported vaccination event thus far in the state.
A second day of vaccinations took place Saturday morning at 9 and continued until 7 p.m. Two Missouri National Guard teams were at Arrowhead on Saturday, and about 4,000 additional shots were expected to be given. The Arrowhead event involves the one-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine. The event was for Jackson County residents only. Jackson County includes Kansas City, Raytown, and Grandview.
Missourinet Kansas City television partner KMBC reports many of those vaccinated Friday are from the poorest and most-impacted neighborhoods from COVID in Jackson County. KMBC’s Mike Mahoney, who was in the Arrowhead parking lot all day Friday, reports things went smoothly. Mahoney says the mass vaccination process took about 40 minutes, from arrival to completion.
Governor Mike Parson traveled to Arrowhead Stadium on Friday, where he held a press conference with Jackson County Executive and former Kansas City Royal star Frank White. They were also joined by State Sen. Barbara Washington (D-Kansas City), State Rep. Ashley Bland Manlove (D-Kansas City), State Rep. Emily Weber (D-Kansas City), and others.
Kansas City Area Transportation Authority President Robbie Makinen also spoke at Friday’s press conference and praised the bipartisan cooperation to put it together.
“I’m grateful for Governor Parson, I’m grateful for Senator Barbara Washington, for Representative Bland Manlove. Them allowing us to be a part, they understand that need for access. That need to level the playing field and for social equity,” Mr. Makinen says.
The governor also says that about 40 percent of Missourians will likely decide to not receive COVID vaccinations. “I believe it is the right thing to do to take the vaccine, but again I want to be clear about this, there’s still going to be a certain amount of people that are not going to take the vaccine. And they have every right to do that,” Parson says.
Meantime, Missouri vaccinators have now administered more than 1.9 million COVID shots, which includes the first and second doses. That’s 21.1 percent of Missouri’s population. The state Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) COVID-19 dashboard says 225,016 doses have been administered during the past week, which is an average of 32,145 per day.
Governor Parson also announced Friday that vaccine allotments to Missouri are projected to triple, with more than 500,000 initial doses estimated to arrive in Missouri during April’s first week.
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