KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas is moving into Phases 3 and 4 of its vaccine distribution next week, which can be great news for 600,000 more people. However, it's concerning for many others.
"It's kind of been the wild west out here in Kansas for vaccines," Christina Quentin, a Johnson County resident, said.
Quentin and her husband fall within Phase 2 but have had a tough time finding a vaccine appointment in Johnson County.
She worries about how the state will handle opening up more phases when people in Phase 2 are struggling to find an appointment now.
The same goes for Alex Busche, who started looking outside Johnson County to find one.
"It's just tough and to hear they're going to move into the next phase, I'm like wait hold on," Busche said.
Quentin and Busche, like many people, filled out the Johnson County vaccine interest form over a month ago but still haven't been contacted.
"That's an issue, especially with as large a segment of population that phase 3 and 4 will encompass," Quentin said. "And with as many people who are still phase 2 eligible who are fighting to get a vaccine and having to drive to neighboring counties."
Both Quentin and Busche know people who have driven to Iola, Kansas to get a vaccine.
Quentin and her husband eventually got theirs through a hospital.
"Seriously, it was like a lottery win," Quentin said.
Busche just found an appointment in Valley Falls, Kansas, more than an hour away. He said the Jefferson County Health Department had an abundance of appointment times to choose from.
"It seems like they're the ones that have availability and everyone in Johnson County, you gotta hope and pray you can find that link that is open for you," Busche said.
The Johnson County Health Department says its nearing completion of phase 2 in the next few weeks but that vaccine supply has been an issue.
In Douglas County, where the population is much smaller, the health department says it plans to finish the bulk of Phase 2 vaccines by the end of the week. The department said it has mechanisms in place to cover everyone.
"Our plan is to be able to have allocation that goes to phases 1 and 2 as we start to move through phase 3 and 4 so we can continually cover phases 1 and 2," Sonia Jordan, director of informatics for Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, said.
The formula for the allocation plan will need to be approved by the county's unified command structure.
Jordan said the department already factored phases 3 and 4 into their vaccine interest form.
"We just encourage everyone to register in the survey, knowing that we might not get to you until later," Jordan said. "It could help with our planning for future vaccine dispensing and we would just know interest levels in general."
As of Tuesday, the Douglas County Health Department was working to follow up with 22,000 people who had filled out the survey.
More than 65,000 interest forms have been submitted. That number includes people who have already been notified and received a vaccine dose and people who have submitted multiple forms by mistake.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is expecting more supply from the federal government in hopes the state can finish all the phases by May.
