The roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 6 months to 2 years hasn’t been smooth in Missouri or Kansas, but it’s also been strange.
Children without health insurance actually have a better chance of getting the shot because the Vaccines for Children programme has made it available.
The Johnson County Health Department has ordered shots for children with insurance, but they haven’t arrived yet.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the shots for children 6 months and older about a month ago, and that’s when Andrew Peck started looking for the vaccine for his son, A.J.
“I talked to about 10 different agencies between the pharmacies, the children’s clinics and the health department,” Peck said. “As a parent, as a doctor, it’s not easy to navigate.”
Peck is an anaesthesiologist at North Kansas City Hospital, and he knows he is at greater risk of bringing the disease home.
Peck called several health departments, but kept getting the same answer: the vaccine isn’t available to children with health insurance. Finally, he found the Moderna vaccine available at University Health Truman Medical Center and the Pfizer vaccine available at the Kansas City Health Department.
Currently, CVS offers the vaccine to children over the age of two, and Walgreens’ cut-off age is three.
“I want all the parents out there with kids older than six months who are struggling to get a vaccine, who want a vaccine, who are insured, to be able to find out where to get it,” Peck said.
