Now, the cross-functional team of essential workers and volunteers is working to distribute the vaccine and is working, says Elliott, who is responsible for distributing the vaccine to the county. In fact, he says that a single dose has not been missed.
While Kittitas County gave 53% of its current vaccines, the county has vaccine clinics open this week to deliver a new batch of more than 2,000 vaccines, according to Kittitas Valley Healthcare. With all consultations carried out, the municipality estimates that 97% of its doses were administered by the end of this week.
“The infrastructure that we have with everyone communicating, everyone willing to be flexible and perform any necessary function and an understanding of (incident command system) and emergency operation centers gives us the framework to do this,” Elliott told CNN .
Fighting fires brought lessons for vaccine launch
When you’re fighting big fires, you have to act fast and resources can change in the blink of an eye, so learning how to change plans and staying flexible is part of the job, said Elliott.
“In case of fires, we do things and you build plans around what is available and what are the priorities,” said Elliott. “These changes change almost daily in forest fires because the risks change, the climate changes, all these things are changing and you get more resources, or the resources are taken from you.”
Changing resources and changing priorities are similar issues when it comes to fighting the pandemic.
“The same thing is true with this Covid,” said Elliott. “We need the vaccine in people’s laps, preferably as close to the order of priority as we can, but this will only end vaccination and people will respect public health guidelines. And until we get there, the economy is going to be a wreck and people are going to die. “
In charge of incidents, Elliott explained how he and others provide sufficient guidance and flexibility for teams to make their own decisions. Give them directions and let them “operate within the fences,” he said.
“We emphasize that you should not repeatedly be told how to do your job,” said Elliott. “You must tell them what the goals are, give them the resources, give them the deadline, and then stay out of their business.”
In firefighting and Covid-19, Elliott says it is important for local leaders to do what they believe is right for their community. If something goes wrong, you must be willing to accept the consequences, he said.
“Don’t expect it to be perfect,” said Elliott. “You will not get all your answers, you will not get all the answers to all questions. It is the responsibility of leadership at the local level to take reasonable risks.”
And when possible, make decisions at the local level, he said. Large jurisdictions are just a “series of smaller units”, like hospital districts in a large county, he said.
“I think we need to trust each other a little bit, give each other a little grace and recognize that we are all trying to work for the same thing,” said Elliott. “The more local you allow decisions to be made in this distribution process, the more successful you will be.”
Although Elliott has been successful in his county, he doesn’t want people to think he has all the answers.
“I don’t want to sound like we have it all planned out because we don’t,” he said. “There are nights when I don’t sleep very well.”
How they had ‘zero missed doses’
The county received more than 2,100 doses of the vaccine last week and has already named a person for each of these valuable vials, said Elliott.
This may not seem like much to someone in a big city, but it is a lot in this county. Located in central Washington, Kittitas County has 48,140 residents, according to the state’s Office of Financial Management.
“We have more than 95% distribution of the vaccine that we received until this week,” said Elliott last week. “As we have just received a huge load of vaccine, after Friday of next week we will be back well over 95%. When I say 95%, the vaccine is in the arms of people or people have a difficult date for the consultation, because you have to space the first and second doses. “
Kasey Knutson, a spokesman for the Kittitas County Department of Public Health, has informed the public when the vaccine arrives, who is eligible based on the current phase of the vaccine and how to get consultations. She is also in charge of getting volunteers to help with distribution.
Before long, the emergency management center lined up 102 teachers to come and get vaccinated, said Elliott.
The cross-functional team identified the teachers, who are in phase 1B of the vaccine, as a group that would be able to respond quickly, said Knutson. The network to easily reach teachers already existed in their school systems.
Some teachers may have been vaccinated ahead of schedule, but the overall objective was to ensure that some high-priority groups received the vaccine and it did not go to waste.
Elliott explained that there are sometimes extra doses with the Pfizer vaccine when it is mixed, which local pharmacists are preparing in Kittitas County.
“You just don’t know how many extra doses, so you have to have this flexible group of people waiting backstage 10 minutes in advance to get the vaccine,” said Elliott. “We did this with teachers.”
The spacing of the vaccine doses is important for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, both used by the municipality. The other part involves discovering the logistics of traffic control and patient flow to paperwork and administration and monitoring of vaccinated patients, said Knutson.
“We want to make sure that when we put people in the first round, we already have a system in place and we can guarantee that these people will come back for the second round,” said Knutson.
One of the biggest challenges facing the county and many across the country is that people want to get the vaccine as soon as possible, said Knutson. But vaccination will be a long process.
She said she has been busy checking on volunteers and making sure they do everything they can to avoid running out of staff so vaccines can continue. This week, the goal is to distribute 215 doses of vaccines a day at two clinics, she said.
“We are really aware of how eager people are to receive their vaccines and we just want to assure people that we are effectively distributing the vaccine, that we are not stocking it and that we will not waste the vaccine,” she said.