Thread by @LaurenWeberHP

Missourians have driven hours to find vaccines in rural counties. Doses are still slowly being rolled out in a federal long-term care program. Black residents are getting left behind.

Here's what went wrong in Missouri's vaccine rollout.
#moleg @KHNews

khn.org/news/article/m…

If Missouri were on par with the national rate of vaccinations, that would be roughly equivalent to more than 162,000 additional people vaccinated, or almost the entire population of the city of Springfield.

Instead, MO is in the bottom of states for its rocky rollout.

The former director of the St. Louis health department put it simply:

“You get what we pay for."

Our 2020 @AP @KHNews #UnderfundedUnderThreat investigation found that Missouri public health staffing at the state level had fallen 8% from 2010 to 2019, a loss of 106 employees.

Public health spending per Missourian was $50 per year — one of the bottom 10 states in the nation.

And when the pandemic struck, local health departments had only 408 employees trained to give vaccinations.

So the state skipped over local health departments, the experts in getting the vaccine to those who need it the most.

“We’ve drilled for this, we’ve got plans on shelves that are collecting dust for this,” Schmidt said.

Only 9.9% of Black Missourians are vaccinated, as opposed to 18.3% of white Missourians, according to available data.

A series of reports produced by Deloitte, showed a pattern of vaccine deserts in metro areas, where the state’s Black residents are concentrated.

In March, nearly a third of Missouri residents traveled outside their county to get vaccinated.

@JillSchupp told me that leaves the elderly, the low-income, the working "to fend for themselves."

Adam Crumbliss of the state health department noted state officials have concerns about data discrepancies that have made Missouri appear to be lagging.

In the course of reporting this story, federal officials and the state disagreed over four different data points.

All the while political animus abounds.

Missouri is one of 24 states where legislators are attempting to curtail public health powers.

The state also never had a mask mandate.

apnews.com/article/pandem…

“No one is wearing masks in the Capitol, and you’re asking public health officials to go and testify in person, against their own guidance,” said Will Marrs, a lobbyist for the Missouri Association of Local Health Agencies.

“It’s very much not normal.”

And even amid a pandemic, local health departments couldn't get funding from their county commissioners when CARES dollars came around.

Many commissioners were mad at their health departments for shutting down local businesses, so they refused to fork over the funds.

At least 40 local health departments hadn’t received any of the money as of early October.

Those that did reported an average of 8% of county CARES money, instead of the state-recommended 15%.

Look no further than Platte County, where a local cruise travel company in Kansas City, Missouri, got almost the same amount of CARES funds as the local health department -- which served over 100,000 citizens in a pandemic.

While gobs of federal money is coming from the latest relief package, many are concerned history will repeat itself in Missouri.

“How confident are we that states that are actively trying to limit public health authority are going to do a good job of spending this money appropriately?” @BrianCCastrucci told me.

stltoday.com/lifestyles/hea…