Nearly 25% of Missourians have at least 1 vaccination shot

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Nearly 25% of Missouri's residents have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot, state health officials said Tuesday.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services' COVID-19 dashboard reported Tuesday 1.5 million Missourians have begun the vaccination process, and 902,026 are fully vaccinated.

One of the highest vaccination rates is in Joplin, where officials say 31.4% of the city's 51,000 citizens received at least one shot. Atchison County in northwest Missouri reported a 31.1% vaccination rate, according to the dashboard.

Ryan Talken, director of the Joplin Health Department, credited the high vaccination rate to the city having two large hospitals -- Freeman Health System and Mercy Hospital Joplin -- and medical community that works well together to distribute vaccines, The Joplin Globe reported.

Nationally, 28.2% of the population has received at least one dose, ranking Missouri in the bottom 10 among states, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

As of Tuesday, the state confirmed 488,968 cases of COVID-19, and 8,498 deaths -- an increase of 320 cases and 58 deaths. The deaths were the result of a weekly review by health department officials of death certificates that had not already been reported to the state.