By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – At the Friday morning Covid briefing Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry started with the numbers.
1,025 total cases in our county, all but 20 have recovered. That means about 7% of the population has been infected by the virus and 33%, or 24,016 people, have received at least a first dose.
There are about 600 available slots available for this Saturday’s event in Port Angeles. The Jamestown Tribe is also hosting a Saturday drive-through event, with a twist.
Because the Jamestown Tribe has more leeway than County health officials, effective immediately, those aged 50+ may register for any DOSE 1 COVID vaccination drive-through clinic in Sequim, including spouses that may be younger than 50.
The days currently open for vaccine registration are Saturday March 13th; Tuesday March 16th; and Thursday March 18th.
Health Director Brent Simcosky says registrations have shown that it’s time to expand the tier.
“What we’re finding is that the demand for the 65-plus has started to dwindle. And so we want to open it up. You know, we vaccinated close to 15,000 people. So we’re just going to keep going down the list until we get everybody.”
Additionally, the Tribe is vaccinating not only schoolteachers and staff, but also their spouses. Register online at http://vaccine.clallam.net/register. Once online registration is complete, a ticket with date and time should be printed and brought with you.
On March 17 our county will be moving into the B2 tier, which is that entire list of people who work in congregate setting including fishing, agriculture, grocery workers, transit and more. B2 also includes women who are pregnant and folks with disabilities, including developmental disabilities.
As we reported earlier, the Gov. announced Thursday that all counties will move to Phase 3 on March 22. Dr. Berry says she thinks the bar for moving counties backward after that has been set too low.
“What I am concerned about is the metrics that were chosen for the triggers are quite high. So we’re looking at two hundred cases per 100,000 to be in Phase 3, 350 cases per 100,000 to be in Phase 2. Those are incredibly high. For a reference, at the peak of our infections, we were at 230 cases per hundred thousand when we were having a massive outbreak throughout the community. That makes me nervous, largely because it’s going to allow several counties to move forward who don’t have their outbreaks under control. So we are very likely to see a rise in infections in the rest of the state which can start to affect us.”
Dr. Berry believes because of those metrics that we are likely to see cases rise in other counties, and warns against too much in-state or out-of-state travel at this time.