By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – Friday morning’s Covid briefing with Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry Unthank began with updated numbers. Clallam County actually reported 2 fewer total cases, 549, than on Thursday because it turns out 2 people who tested positive were from another county and have since gone home. There are 5 people currently hospitalized and our cases per 100K is at 214, better than most counties in our state.
Dr. Unthank says local cases are primarily driven by small social gatherings, followed by workplace infections.
The Dr. broke the news today that our county has adopted a new quarantine policy based on the latest recommendation from the CDC.
“So the duration of quarantine has been shortened from 14 days to 10 if you are exposed to covid-19, if at day 10 you are asymptomatic. So we are adopting that recommendation, as has the Washington State Department of Health.”
We also heard the latest on when two of the vaccines will be available and to whom. Dr. Unthank says the state Dept. of Health anticipates getting 400,000 doses by the end of the year, to be distributed first to health care workers.
“We have about 500,000 healthcare workers. So it’s still not quite enough to vaccinate all of our healthcare workers, but it likely will put us in a good position to vaccinate the majority of our healthcare workers by the end of the year. After that, the plan will be to roll out vaccine to those both living and working in long-term care facilities. And anticipate vaccine becoming available to some members of the public likely by next spring.”
Available vaccines are a 2-dose series, separated by 3-4 weeks per dose. The duration of the vaccines, or how long they are effective, is not yet known because they are so new, but Dr. Unthank says that if a population can get around 75% of it’s people vaccinated, it should wipe out the virus in that community, regardless of the duration.