Vaccines are sitting on shelves in these states. They’re getting desperate to give them out.

In the beginning, there were tens of thousands of calls for coronavirus vaccination slots.

The residents trying to make appointments at the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department in January overtaxed the rural West Virginia community’s telephone provider, causing a temporary system outage.

“No amount of phone capability was going to match the public’s demand,” Dr. Sherri Young, the county’s health officer, said.

But over the last few weeks, she’s seen a shift. The clinic still vaccinates up to 100 people per day, but the center’s waitlist has shortened. The number of no-shows at an April 10 drive-thru clinic was the highest the department had seen.

Now, Young said, “you almost have to reach out to get appointments.”