By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – Health Officer Dr. Berry expects to be able to complete the vaccinations of the 1B1 group, people over the age of 65, by the end of February and move into the B2 group in early March.
Dr. Berry says the only limiting factor is that we don’t know how many doses we’ll be getting, and when, from the state from one week to the next.
“We continue to have difficult conversations with the State about trying to give us some idea of what we are anticipating so that we can plan and communicate that to our population, but we have not yet succeeded in getting that kind of information. We do have enough vaccine for the Port Angeles mass vaccination this weekend. Jamestown has enough for the mass vaccinations that they have planned and we have scheduled. So if you have a scheduled appointment, that will be honored.”
The County’s registration webpage will soon be moving to a more stable schedule of opening registrations every other Wednesday. The Jamestown Tribe added an additional 3 days to their vaccination schedule, and the Dr. says that as of Friday morning there were still about 500 openings available.
Clallam County still leads the state in vaccination rates, with 19% of the population having received at least their first dose.
“What I really want to encourage folks to do is, keep doing what you’ve been doing. Clallam County has done a fantastic job so far. We’ve controlled our infections by and large. We have prevented the large-scale outbreaks that we’ve seen in other parts of the state in the country. We just have to keep doing it a little bit longer. If we can keep vaccinating at the rate we have, getting to herd immunity by June, about, in our community. So we’re getting close. We’re almost there. It’s not much longer before we can start to see our lives get a lot more normal.”
Doing well as a county is one thing, but we’re also part of the Northwest Region as of January 11, which includes Jefferson, Mason and Kitsap Counties, so moving forward into Phase 2 of the Governor’s plan depends on them putting forth steadily improving data as well.
Dr. Berry says, overall, we’re doing pretty well as a region, but all 3 of those counties have recently had large-scale outbreaks that they’re working to get under control. In Mason County it’s a prison outbreak they’ve been monitoring for several weeks. Kitsap had some long-term care facility outbreaks that strained local healthcare capacity but is showing signs of improvement. The biggest recent outbreak though is in Jefferson County, but Dr. Berry says she’s confident their local health officials will get it under control.
State health officials evaluate regional data every 2 weeks to determine who moves forward. Our next report is due in a week.