Health care workers across the state have started receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, which arrived in Kansas on Monday.
The moment provides relief for many who finally are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It feels so incredibly positive to begin this journey to end this pandemic, said Robert Kenagy, CEO of Stormont Vail Health in Topeka.
But now that vaccines are being administered, what happens now? We take a closer look.
Who has already received the vaccine?
The initial round of 23,750 doses of the Pfizer vaccine arrived in Kansas on Monday. Shortly afterward, Ascension Via Christi Hospital in Wichita began inoculating some of its employees with the first doses administered in the state.
There have been a lot of numbers tossed about during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of hospitalizations haunted Kansans on a near-daily basis over the course of the last nine months.
Residents became experts on positivity rates and testing capacity. They got schooled in a crash course on epidemiology and have become increasingly savvy at mask-wearing, hand washing and staying 6 feet away from others.
But there is a new, more optimistic datapoint, starting Wednesday: the first COVID-19 vaccines distributed in Shawnee County, given to Stormont Vail Hospital workers at the Stormont Vail Events Center.