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About 31,000 Clark County residents will become eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday as Washington enters its next phase of vaccine deployment.
While the early rollout has been littered with long waits for the vaccine, Clark County Public Health Officer Dr Alan Melnick sees the next phase unfolding smoothly and quickly due to the increased supply. in vaccines.
“Considering the amount of vaccine that is coming into the community, I am optimistic that not only are we ready for this new group of people, but I believe that we will be able to vaccinate people faster and more effectively than before,” Melnick said.
In January, the vaccines were made available to anyone over the age of 65 and over 50 living in multigenerational homes. But Clark County and most Washington counties have struggled to get people vaccinated quickly.
There was a lot more demand than supply. Clark County’s deployment was further hampered by Washington’s bypass in the county’s vaccine allocation, which was corrected just a few weeks ago.
County data and anecdotal evidence suggests that these problems are decreasing and vaccine availability is increasing.
In less than a month, Clark County’s vaccine supply more than quadrupled. During the first 11 weeks of the vaccine rollout in Washington, Clark County received an average of about 4,100 first doses of the vaccine per week. In its latest vaccine allocation, the county received about 17,700 first doses.
The county has opened a vaccination site at Tower Mall in Vancouver, in addition to the mass vaccination site operating at the Clark County Event Center and Fairgrounds near Ridgefield.
The county administered vaccines to residents and staff of adult families. Health care providers, clinics and pharmacies are seeing their stocks of vaccines increase.
Perhaps the most promising sign of the extent of progress and improvement in this part of the deployment is the extent to which Clark County Public Health has worked on its wait list.
Just a few weeks ago, the county had more than 30,000 people waiting to be referred to a medical provider for a vaccine. As of Monday afternoon, that number had dropped to 291 people.
These massive gains were made despite Washington adding early childhood educators and educators as an eligible population two weeks ago.
Clark County added about 19,000 eligible people in these professions, but made progress nonetheless.
“At the end of the day, we added people recently and we’re still at 291 on the waiting list,” Melnick said.
State Department of Health spokeswoman Shelby Anderson said in an email that state officials are confident they will move on to the next phase, which was recently brought forward by a full week.
The state has vaccinated about 44,600 people per day in recent weeks, up from 26,000 people per day last month. More than 19% of Washingtonians have received a first dose of the vaccine and 11% are fully vaccinated, according to Anderson.
By the end of February, 8.26 percent of the population of Clark County had received a dose and only 3.47 percent of the population was fully immunized. As of Monday afternoon, those numbers had climbed to 14.39% and 6.89%, respectively.
Anderson said Washington regularly receives 320,000 doses of the vaccine each week.
According to a three-week vaccine allocation forecast for the state, Washington is expected to receive more than 341,000 doses of the vaccine by the week of March 28.
Anderson said if you’re eligible but still haven’t been vaccinated, it would be a good idea to make an appointment before the next phase opens on Wednesday.
“The Department of Health and our partners across the state have worked hard to ensure that we have the infrastructure in place to expand vaccine delivery as allocations increase,” Anderson said. “In the future, we hope people won’t have to wait long periods of time to receive vaccines when they are eligible.”
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