ST. LOUIS — The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services unveiled a new dashboard to track the progress of coronavirus vaccinations in the state.
The dashboard includes the number of doses administered, the number of people who have received one or two doses and the number of doses administered per day.
According to the dashboard, the state has administered 356,310 doses. The dashboard said 275,079 people have received the first dose and 81,231 have received two doses. According to the dashboard, 4.5% of people in the state have received their first dose.
A press release from Governor Mike Parson said the dashboard was launched to increase transparency. He said the numbers reported by the CDC — which have shown Missouri last in the percentage of people with at least one dose of the vaccine — "are marginal and are being used to misinform Missourians that the state is falling short in vaccine administration, or worse, that the state itself is stockpiling vaccines."
As of Jan. 26, the Missouri dashboard is reporting 16,000 more doses reported than the CDC data. Missouri's dashboard says 4.5% of Missourians have received their first dose, compared to the 4.27% reported by the CDC, which is the lowest of any state in the CDC data. There are three states that have 4.5% of people with at least one dose of the vaccine: Nevada, Alabama and Kansas. They rank 46th, 47th and 48th, respectively.
A spokeswoman for the governor said they are frustrated with the slow pace of the federal pharmacy partnership. She said the states have been given permission to take unused doses back from those pharmacies and give them to state-enrolled vaccinators, and Missouri intends to do so.
She said all the pharmacies in the federal program will have enough doses to complete scheduled vaccinations.
Missouri's dashboard also includes breakdowns by age, race, sex and county.
According to the county-by-county breakdown, St. Louis County has administered 58,380 doses, the most of any county in the state. According to the dashboard, 4.4% of people in the City of St. Louis have received the first dose, and 4.3% of people in St. Louis County have received the first dose, the highest rates of any Missouri jurisdictions in the St. Louis area.
