COVID-19

Spirit AeroSystems has ended what company officials have called a challenging year.

The company issued its final 2020 financial report on Tuesday and it was grim: Spirit lost nearly $900 million last year because of the pandemic and the grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max. That compares to a profit of more than $500 million in 2019.

The good news about the new $5 billion of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds approved by Congress in December is that Congress made some favorable revisions just to help small businesses and businesses owned by people of color.

The demand for the COVID-19 vaccine is high as Kansas is still working through Phase 2 of the state’s vaccine distribution plan. As more vaccine is made available, many private clinics and pharmacies are now administering shots in addition to county health departments. Here’s where you can find a vaccine site near you:

Sedgwick County is lining up more staff and volunteers for its COVID-19 vaccination clinics.

It’s called “vaccine surfing” — hanging out around a COVID-19 vaccination center at the end of the day, hoping to get a shot from the leftovers.

But it won’t work at Sedgwick County’s vaccination stations, a top county official said Tuesday.

While Sedgwick County is committed to not wasting any doses of the precious vaccine, its medical personnel won’t give the jab to just anybody to get rid of spare doses, said Tim Kaufman, deputy county manager.

Though the COVID-19 vaccine has only been offered in Sedgwick County to medical professionals and those 75 and older, some college students have already been vaccinated.

Kari Coster, a junior majoring in health management at Wichita State University, is one of the students who qualified for the vaccine in the early phases.

Coster works at a hospital, and when the vaccine was offered to her, she decided to get it because of the people she is constantly in contact with.

GARDEN CITY – What happens when language differences get in the way of understanding the facts pertaining to the COVID-19 vaccine? That’s the challenging reality many in southwest Kansas were facing until two medical professionals came together to start breaking down the barrier.