Experts say vaccine campaign needs to speed up in Missouri

The CDC says Missouri has the slowest coronavirus vaccination rate in the country.

The agency’s website says, as of Sunday night, less than four percent of the state’s population has gotten at least one dose of the vaccine.

More from The Associated Press:

Health experts say Missouri isn’t vaccinating people quickly enough to create widespread immunity by this summer. To reach that goal, officials want to inoculate between 70% and 85% of the state’s residents. That means getting between 4.3 million and 5.2 million people immunized. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that just 205,000 Missourians have received the first dose of vaccine. BJC HealthCare’s Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Clay Dunagan estimates that vaccinating 5 million residents by the end of June would require 25,000 to 30,000 vaccinations per day. Over the past week, Missouri has been averaging almost 11,000 per day.