As chronically underfunded health services roll out mass vaccination sites, Amazon releases one-day pop-up – Slog

The trillion dollar company which is one of the few companies that absolutely raked it during COVID-19 lockdowns would like you to know that it has partnered with Virginia Mason to run a vaccination site pop-up at the Amazon Meeting Center in South Lake Union from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. this Sunday.

During the one-day event, Virginia Mason volunteers plan to administer 2,000 vaccines to anyone who qualifies, regardless of insurance status. Find out if you’re eligible for the jab with the state’s PhaseFinder tool, and access the hospital waiting list here.

Amazon Senior Vice President of International Affairs Jay Carney announced the temporary site during Governor Inslee’s press conference on Thursday. The company will also be loaning one of its executives to the Washington State Vaccine Command and Coordination Center to, you know, “take advantage of our operations, our information technology, logistics and our communications “so as to help put more vaccines into the guns,” Carney said. Carney concluded by mentioning a plan to pay a third-party occupational health provider to administer the vaccine to eligible recipients at their own distribution centers.

I did not hear a lot about Amazon which backs any state or federal tax to help pay for chronically underfunded public health departments tasked with setting up statewide mass vaccination sites while using outdated and disparate systems in an already hopelessly fragmented healthcare system, but I do want to take this moment to thank them for their contribution. (At the press conference, Governor Inslee said “[Amazon has] not asked for a reward “for their help, and he” hopes they will continue to help us … in additional ways. “So I guess there is still time for growth, but I’m not holding my breath.)

Meanwhile, Snohomish County already operates three mass vaccination sites and plans to open several more. King County has pledged to open two sites in the southern part of the county by February 1, then ten in total at any given time. By next week, the State Department of Health plans to set up sites in Spokane, Kennewick, Wenatchee and Ridgefield.

The directors of all of these health departments are all saying they could speed up the process of planning and building these sites if only they could count on more vaccines to come. In order to meet Inslee’s goal of vaccinating 45,000 Washingtonians per day, Inslee said the federal government would need to “triple” their production because we have already vaccinated more people per day than the federal government can. follow the dosage. The governor said he was not sure when he would learn more about the increased supply, but expressed confidence in “having a partner in the White House who can really help us.” According to New York Times, the country’s vaccine supply is unlikely to increase until April.

Over the past two weeks, this state has slowly increased its vaccine allocation rate from 26% on January 8 to 44% today (or 52% if you don’t count vaccines intended for long-term care patients. , which private pharmacies dispense through a program the federal government runs).

So far, healthcare providers in Washington have received nearly 830,000 doses of the vaccine, but have only put up 362,000 in arms. Inslee said those numbers, which still seem a bit low considering, place us “13th in the country for vaccines that have taken place.” This is true for the number of hits given, but the state ranks 33rd in terms of the percentage of the population who have received at least one hit, according to a New York Times pointing.

State health department officials cite many reasons for the low numbers, including a lack of transparency from the federal government regarding how many people in long-term care facilities they actually have. vaccines and data / communication delay issues related to dependence on older adults and disparate immunization systems. However, Washington Health Secretary Dr Umair Shah pointed to the rising percentage of vaccine allocations as proof that things will get better.