On Wednesday, some 31,000 Clark County residents will become eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine as Washington enters its next phase of vaccine distribution.
Although the initial launch was fraught with long waits for the vaccine, Clark County public health officer Dr. Alan Melnick sees the next phase taking place smoothly and quickly due to the increased supply of the vaccine.
“Given the amount of vaccine that reaches the community, I am optimistic that not only are we ready for this new group of people, but I think we will be able to vaccinate people more quickly and efficiently than before,” said Melnick. .
In January, vaccines were made available to anyone over 65 and people over 50 who lived in multigenerational homes. But Clark County and most Washington counties struggled to vaccinate people quickly.
There was significantly more demand than supply. Clark County’s deployment was further hampered by Washington’s shortening the county’s vaccine allocation, with that situation corrected just a few weeks ago.
County data and anecdotal evidence suggest that these problems are decreasing and that vaccine availability is increasing.
In less than a month, Clark County’s vaccine stock has more than quadrupled. During the first 11 weeks of the vaccine’s launch in Washington, Clark County received an average of about 4,100 first doses of the vaccine per week. In its last vaccine distribution, the county received about 17,700 first doses.
The county opened a vaccination facility at Vancouver’s Tower Mall, in addition to the mass vaccination facility operating at the Clark County Event Center and Fairgrounds near Ridgefield.
The county administered vaccinations to residents and household workers of adult families. Medical service providers, clinics and pharmacies are seeing their vaccine supplies multiply.
Perhaps the most promising sign of how much progress has been made, and how much better this part of the implementation could be, is how much Clark County Public Health has worked on its waiting list.
Just a few weeks ago, the county had more than 30,000 people waiting to be referred to a medical provider for the vaccine. On Monday afternoon, that number plummeted to 291 people.
These massive gains were made despite the fact that Washington added educators and caregivers of children as an eligible population two weeks ago.
Clark County added some 19,000 eligible people to these occupations, but has still made progress.
“The bottom line is that we added people recently and we’re still 291 on the waiting list,” said Melnick.
State Health Department spokeswoman Shelby Anderson said in an e-mail that state officials are confident of moving on to the next phase, which has recently been moved forward by an entire week.
The state has vaccinated about 44,600 people a day in recent weeks, up from 26,000 people a day last month. More than 19 percent of Washington residents received the first dose of the vaccine and 11 percent are fully vaccinated, according to Anderson.
At the end of February, 8.26% of the Clark County population had received a dose and only 3.47% of the population was fully vaccinated. On Monday afternoon, those numbers jumped to 14.39% and 6.89%, respectively.
Anderson said Washington is consistently receiving 320,000 doses of the vaccine each week.
According to a three-week vaccine allocation forecast from the state, Washington is expected to receive more than 341,000 doses of the vaccine in the week of March 28.
Anderson said that if you are eligible but have not yet been vaccinated, it would be a good idea to make an appointment before the next round starts on Wednesday.
“The Department of Health and our partners across the state have been working hard to ensure that we have the infrastructure to expand vaccine administration as allocations increase,” said Anderson. “In the future, we hope that people will not have to wait long periods of time to receive vaccines when they are eligible.”