Some Ohioans have tried to jump the line by trying to get their COVID-19 vaccinations in Kentucky.
During his Thursday press briefing Gov. Andy Beshear responded to a question from Kentucky Today regarding reports about people from the Buckeye State trying to get vaccine appointments at the Kroger Regional Center in Covington.
“Today, we did learn that a number of Ohioans, about a thousand, had scheduled at least through Saturday at our Covington facility,” he said. “We have fixed their ability to sign up, based on zip code. But for the people that showed up for a vaccine, we did go ahead and vaccinate them. Listen, they are people, too, and they can spread it across the river. Now, I am personally going to ask the federal government for every individual who we vaccinated from Ohio, to get at least that amount of allocation from Ohio.”
Beshear added, “This is one of those things that test us as people, right? We get an allocation for Kentuckians, we have somebody in need that shows up that might not be one of your citizens, and while we don’t want it to happen, turning them away is a different question. I hope that when we dig down to our values and faith that we hope we give that person protection, we can stop the issue from happening in the future, then we can get those extra vaccines coming back to us, because it’s our job to vaccineate our own citizens.”
The governor also announced 119 new vaccination sites, bringing the state’s total number of vaccine providers to 410.
“Vaccinations are going incredibly well in Kentucky,” he said. “We are giving out doses faster than the federal government provides them. More than 646,000 Kentuckians have received at least the first dose of their shot of hope less than a year after our first confirmed COVID-19 case.”
Six of the new locations are regional sites; three are federally qualified health centers; 10 are Walmart stores; 10 are Kroger stores; and 90 are Walgreens stores. The new locations will be added to the “Where Can I Get Vaccinated?” map on the vaccine.ky.gov website.