BY NICOLE ASBURY
Douglas County health officials expect Phase 2 of coronavirus vaccine distribution will begin unfolding in the next several days, members of the Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health board said during a meeting Tuesday evening.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is expected to announce this week that the state will begin its second phase of its vaccine distribution plan, according to county and state officials. Under the second phase, individuals who are 65 and older, or are employed by a state-designated essential business, such as K-12 educators or grocery store employees, are among those prioritized.
“We’re kind of at the tail end of Phase 1, so we have about 2,000 health care workers that are still in the process of being scheduled,” said Charlie Bryan, a business systems analyst for Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, during the meeting with the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Board.
Roughly 500 more doses will come into the county by Saturday that will soon be made available for a Phase 2 open clinic at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, Bryan said. Another 1,000 doses of vaccine are expected to come into the county next week, with county officials hoping to have a clinic for senior citizens to start getting vaccinated by the end of the month.
Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Lee Norman separately discussed the plans to roll out Phase 2 by the end of the week in a call with state lawmakers Tuesday afternoon. While the state will announce the beginning of Phase 2 by the end of the week, it’s up to each county’s health department to decide when to move into the next phase of the statewide vaccine distribution plan, Norman said.
Kansas health officials will provide a dashboard on the Kansas Department Health and Environment website that shows which phase every county in the state is at, Norman said.
LMH Health was the leading vaccine distributor for Phase 1 in Douglas County as of Tuesday evening, Bryan said. The hospital is also receiving vaccines that are separate of the 1,500 doses being made available for the clinic at the Douglas County Fairgrounds that will prioritize senior citizens.
“[The 65+] group is probably the group that’s the most interested in being vaccinated, and we believe that it’s important to probably start with them because it’s the easiest to kind of relieve some of the public pressure to see progress,” Bryan said.
Phase 2 also includes coverage for “congregate care settings,” which includes nursing homes and prisons. Under Phase 2, state officials also plan to distribute the vaccine to high-contact critical workers, which encompasses K-12 educators, firefighters, grocery store employees and more.
Douglas County officials haven’t created a registration system for those employees yet, Bryan said, but the process to identify those employees should be easier than Phase 1.
Under the second phase, “tens of thousands” of people qualify, Bryan said. Kansas health officials project Phase 2 will take from late January to March, according to a timeline provided by the state government.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that Kansas has distributed 263,175 vaccines total as of Tuesday — roughly 9,000 vaccines for every 100,000 residents.
“This is not going to be easy for our community to be patient about,” Bryan said. “Unfortunately, I think we’re going to probably have a lot of pressure from all sides wanting to know how to get scheduled. And unfortunately, until we have the vaccine, we can’t do much scheduling.”
Reach reporter Nicole Asbury at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
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