Some Missourians travel hundreds of miles for Cooper County emergency vaccine clinic
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A two-day vaccine clinic at the Isle of Capri Casino Hotel in Booneville left the Cooper County Health Department with 330 extra doses of coronavirus vaccine.
Some Missourians traveled more than one hundred miles just to receive the shot Friday at an emergency clinic set up by the health department in order to use up the extra doses.
Melanie Hutton, Cooper County Health Department director, said the department is grateful to help Missourians struggling to find a shot in urban areas of the state.
"We are always glad to help, as a rural county without a hospital, we have to go out of county to get hospital services and our residents need to reminded we can't just serve them, we need to serve other people back in return," Hutton said.
Two workers from St. Louis traveled nearly 200 miles to get the shot. Steve Bardol said the vaccine was a blessing.
"You hope for the best and you keep waiting for the vaccines to become available, and once we found out we could come out here today... It's life-changing," Bardol said.
At a vaccine clinic in Boonville Tuesday, vaccine recipient Randy Schwarz from Kansas City said the clinic, which was over 100 miles away, was the closest he could find.
Spots at the emergency clinic on Friday were filed, and as of 2 p.m, only about 50 doses out of the 330 were still left.
"No one is denied if they do not live in Cooper County, but we try to do local people first," Hutton said.
In a report conducted by Deloitte Consulting, obtained by the Missouri Independent, urban areas including St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield showed the largest "vaccination gap." The report defined the gap as the number of eligible people who still are waiting to get the vaccine.
In order to help urban areas receive more vaccine doses, Missouri Gov,. Mike Parson said in his briefing Thursday, the state plans to increase the number of clinics happening in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas by adding two dedicated mass vaccination teams in those areas.
