Alex Smith
Health ReporterAs a health care reporter, I aim to empower my audience to take steps to improve health care and make informed decisions as consumers and voters. I tell human stories augmented with research and data to explain how our health care system works and sometimes fails us.
Email me at alexs@kcur.org.
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Polling suggests that attitudes and misunderstandings among political conservatives and people with limited health care coverage may pose the biggest challenges to mass vaccination. -
While outsiders blame low rural vaccination rates on vaccine hesitancy, local health officials say the state’s distribution system has made providing shots difficult. -
State officials provided no explanation why they used national racial percentages rather than data based on Missouri’s population. -
KU doctors urged the public to recognize the proven safety of COVID-19 vaccines. -
Missouri officials initially slated inmates for earlier vaccination due to their higher risk for COVID-19 infection. -
Though Missouri has been vaccinating seniors for months, nearly half haven't received COVID-19 shots. -
It’s unclear when the data will be fixed. The Kansas City Health Department hasn’t published local data because of concerns about its accuracy. -
Racial data on COVID-19 vaccinations provided to media outlets by Missouri lacked dates or definitions to indicate what the numbers meant. -
Frustrated By Kansas City’s COVID Response, A 27-Year-Old Created A Twitter Bot For Vaccine Sign-UpsAn app created over the course of a long weekend has already connected some Kansas City residents with needed vaccines. -
Nearly a third of Missouri residents have traveled outside of their home counties to get vaccine shots.
