Kentucky’s limited supply is impacting vaccine appointments that were already scheduled

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - COVID-19 vaccine appointments have been hard to come by, and now some of those lucky people who scored appointments are realizing that’s still not a guaranteed shot.

“We were checking several times a day, 24 hours a day,” Cynthia Ray said. “And, he looked and found that two had canceled and that’s how we even got the appointments in the first place.”

But, before Ray and her husband’s scheduled appointment day at the Baptist Health clinic at Lexington Green, they got a phone call saying those doses were no longer available.

“We were excited about doing it and then it fell through,” Ray said.

A spokesperson with Baptist Health Lexington told us it was a change in vaccine allocation that affected people’s appointments. It was fewer than 200 people impacted, and they were all offered another vaccine at Baptist Health Corbin.

It’s just an inconvenience that Gov. Andy Beshear said can be expected with such limited supply.

“The amount that we have at any given time depends both on the federal government and the objective we are serving that week,” Beshear said. “It’s not ideal to have to drive an hour and a half, but if Baptist Health Corbin has extra that week, heck yeah, reach out, even if it’s out of the region, to get it in someone’s arm.”

But, specifically for Ray and her husband, who fall in that 70 and older priority group, they aren’t able to make that extra drive.

“I was just very disappointed because I’m really just trying to stay healthy,” Ray said. “I want to get through this and be able to see my grandkids again, I miss my grandkids really bad.”

Ray and her husband told us they were eventually able to schedule new vaccine appointments in March with Norton Healthcare.

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