vaccines

Residents of Protection, Kansas, came together in the spring of 1957 to make their town the first in the nation to be fully inoculated against polio. Today, like many rural communities, the town is divided over how to fight COVID-19.

PROTECTION, Kansas — Sixty-four years ago, residents of this tiny town in southwestern Kansas set a public health example. They made their town the first in the nation to be fully inoculated against polio.

It’s a different story today.

TOPEKA — Kansas expects to finish giving COVID-19 vaccines to long-term care residents and health care workers by the end of this month and has moved people aged 65 and older into the next group to receive the shots.

TOPEKA — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly on Wednesday received the first of two COVID-19 vaccine shots while some top Republican officials passed, for now, because not all health care workers and nursing home residents have received theirs.

TOPEKA — Gov. Laura Kelly plans to get a COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday as part of a larger program to give shots to selected Kansas officials so that state government can continue to operate during the pandemic.

Hospitals across Kansas have started vaccinating frontline health care workers against COVID-19.

Public health officials have said a widely available vaccine will ultimately control the pandemic that has killed almost 2,500 people in the state.

As the vaccines become available to the general public, America Amplified is gathering and curating answers from experts to questions on the minds of public radio listeners across the country.

TOPEKA — Doses from Kansas’ first shipment of a COVID-19 vaccine were arriving Thursday in rural Kansas for hospitals to administer to health care workers, though the state expects its second shipment to be smaller than anticipated.

Health care workers in Wichita were among the first in the state to get the new COVID-19 vaccination.

Five employees of the Ascension Via Christi health system received shots at St. Francis Hospital Monday.  The hospital says a critical care nurse, a housekeeper for a COVID-19 unit and a respiratory therapist were among those who were vaccinated.  Frontline health workers at other Ascension Via Christi facilities in Kansas will receive the vaccination later this week.