Kansas City-area community organizations working to knock down barriers to COVID-19 vaccine
Kansas City-area organizations work to break COVID-19 vaccine barriers
and last updated 2021-03-04 19:37:20-05
KANSAS CITY, Mo. â Transportation, access to internet and access to health care can all be barriers for someone trying to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Thankfully, community groups in Kansas City, Missouri, are working to help people overcome all of them.
A new program called Care Connect will provide transportation for people who need it to get their vaccine.
Charlie Shields, President and CEO of Truman Medical Centers/University Health, said the program is a partnership between TMC/UH, the Kansas City Area Transit Authority (KCATA) and the Housing Authority of Kansas City.
Regional emergency managers work together during pandemic
Metro emergency managers were activated to help with the COVID-19 pandemic.
and last updated 2021-02-25 06:57:10-05
KANSAS CITY, Mo. â If it can go wrong, Kyle Burns has probably already thought of it.
âI have to think about all the bad things that can happen within the city of Overland Park and how weâre going to plan for those, how are we going to react to those,â explained the emergency management coordinator for the city of Overland Park, Kansas.
The MEMC is made up of his colleagues in municipalities across nine counties surrounding Kansas City: Cass, Clay, Jackson, Platte and Ray counties in Missouri, and Johnson, Leavenworth, Miami and Wyandotte counties in Kansas.
Carlos Moreno/KCUR 89.3
Originally published on February 6, 2021 8:02 am
As Missouri’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout geared up, the state left the work of making sure Black and Latino communities got equitable access to nine regional groups.
The theory was simple a regional organization would know its area best and would understand how to reach at-risk community members.
But more than a month into the rollout, four of those regional teams aren’t up and running and just 5% of the doses have gone to Black Missourians.
In the state, Kansas City has the highest number of vaccine deserts in areas that are particularly medically vulnerable, according to an analysis by Deloitte. When Kansas City’s implementation team gets started and it still has not, even this far into the vaccine rollout it will span 13 counties and cover more than a million people.
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