MU Health plans to vaccinate 1k people per day by early February
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
University of Missouri Health Care will try to administer 1,000 coronavirus vaccination shots per day at its mass clinic in Columbia by early next month.
The goal is among the information that will be presented to a MU Board of Curators committee by Dr. Richard Barohn, MU's executive vice chancellor for health affairs. The open meeting begins at 1 p.m.
The plan includes using Faurot Field as a centralized vaccination site for Columbia. The site opened on Monday in the Walsworth Columns Club at Faurot Field. So far MU Health has vaccinated medical students and others who have direct contact with patients.
Currently, Missouri is in Phase 1B, Tier 2 of its coronavirus vaccination plan, which includes people with certain medical conditions and people older than 65. However, limited supplies mean MU Health has not begun vaccinating that group in large numbers.
The Columbia/Boone County Health Department announced Wednesday that it will randomly draw names for a limited number of shots it has on hand. It's not clear when more shots will arrive to vaccinate more of the Tier 2 population.
Nearly 4,500 MU Health and School of Medicine employees had received their first shot of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine as of Jan. 20, according to the vice chancellor's presentation.
According to the Missouri COVID-19 Dashboard, as of Thursday, 423,839 first and second doses of the vaccine have been administered to Missouri residents. The number of residents who have received at least one dose includes 326,272 individuals and 97,567 people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
The dashboard says 19,395 total coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered in Boone County, including nearly 14,000 first doses. About 7.4% of the county population has received a first dose, according to the dashboard.
The state is also offering free community testing for the novel coronavirus. Missouri residents who wish to register for COVID-19 testing are able to register for a community testing site here.
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