COVID-19 vaccine distribution has started in Greene County. Kathryn Wall, spokesperson for the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, gave an estimate of how many vaccines have been distributed so far, “This is a number updated daily on our data dashboard at health.springfieldmo.gov/coronavirus. As of February 16, 39,672 doses of vaccine have been given to Greene County residents. Of those, 27,070 have been first doses, 12,602 have been second doses.”

As of right now, vaccines are not open to the general public and only those who meet certain criteria are eligible at this moment. “The State of Missouri has designated health care workers, first responders and those who are high risk as eligible for vaccines at this current time,” said Wall about who is currently eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Wall gave a link to visit in order to get more information about when these rules will change and vaccines will become available for more groups of people saying “You can read more detail about who is eligible in the state’s tiered system, and who comes next, at the state’s vaccine website: https://covidvaccine.mo.gov/ “

If you do fall into one of the categories able to receive the vaccine, Wall gave information about how to find out where the best location is to receive it. “This [where you will be able to receive the vaccine] will depend on where a person fits into the state’s tiers, and what health care provider is serving those groups. We have encouraged people to sign up for text message, automated phone-call and/or email updates at health.springfieldmo.gov/finishstrong so they can stay up-to-date on the latest information.”

When asked about what steps must be taken before getting the vaccine, Wall said, “This will likely vary depending on what tier an individual falls into and what health provider they receive the vaccine from. We encourage members of the general public to use the resources at health.springfieldmo.gov/covidvaccine to sign up. for available lists.”

Wall believes that the vaccine alone will not be enough to combat Covid-19 in Springfield, although it shows promising results. “ A lot of this will depend on a variety of factors—what disease spread is looking like, how much as a community we continue to practice washing our hands, wearing our masks and watching our distance to prevent disease spread, and how much of our population is vaccinated. We have been encouraged in recent weeks that overall our case numbers have been trending downward.”

Article by Marissa Mayfield