About 1,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine will be administered this week at the county’s mass vaccination site.
“We are looking to deliver 1,000 doses through this site in the first week of operation,” said county incident management team commander Leonard Johnson. “It will be a soft start as we ramp up the site, with the anticipated capacity of 200 people Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday the plan is to operate with 400 capacity each day.”
The site is on Port of Grays Harbor property. The exact location has not been divulged, in part because it is not open to walk-ins.
“We will literally have to turn away people who get in line who are not scheduled for the location,” said Johnson. The reasons for this include making sure no vaccine is wasted. It’s a Pfizer vaccine, and “once it’s out of the refrigerator we have to administer it, so we’re only taking out allotments” for scheduled appointments each day.
Those receiving the vaccine this week are those who signed up on the county’s vaccine intake form, which can be accessed at facebook.com/healthygh or the Grays Harbor Public Health website, healthygh.org/directory/covid19.
As of Monday afternoon, all 200 appointments have been scheduled for Wednesday. The incident management team and its many partners as of Tuesday morning were still working to schedule the 400 for Thursday and the other 400 for Friday.
The intake form is simple and requires some basic information like a phone number and/or an email address, age, and if you have pre-existing medical conditions. At the end of the form, a message appears assigning you a vaccination phase and a general timeline of when you may be contacted for a vaccination appointment.
If you need help with the form, or want to fill it out by phone, or want to make sure your form was completed and you’re on the list, call the county resource center at 360-964-1850 weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Sundays and holidays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. If you have filled out the intake form but then got a vaccination somewhere else, contact the resource center to have your name removed from its list.
That list is growing quickly. “We do have over 5,000 that have registered in the system so far and the team is working through those to make sure we’re getting everyone into the right tiers and to get them scheduled,” said Johnson. “The team is working to get back to everybody.”
The mass vaccination site is for Grays Harbor County residents who have signed up for a vaccination through the county public health department. Prioritization for this site will be those who are in Phase 1A and Phase 1B Tier 1 of the Washington State Department of Health’s Vaccination Distribution Plan. Included in these phases are high-risk workers in health care settings, high-risk first responders, residents of long term care facilities, people 65 years of age and older, and people 50 years and older who are members of multigenerational households.
This week’s first run will have the county team “getting ready for larger mass vaccination sites in the coming weeks,” said Johnson.
“Everything related to us scheduling vaccination days has to do with vaccine (deliveries),” said Johnson. “We are anticipating another allotment, and then we will announce the days.” He said he anticipates increasing the vaccination access each day, going higher as the allotments are available.
Scheduling is done in blocks at the drive-through mass vaccination site. After a vaccination is delivered, the vehicle is directed to a holding area, where a person is observed to check for reactions to the shot. That amount of time can vary from 15 minutes to longer for a person with pre-existing medical conditions or those who have allergies to medications. In all, appointment holders should plan a total of up to an hour at the site.
Johnson is recommending everyone in the county interested in getting the vaccine fill out the intake form. There are other sources for vaccinations locally, though statewide vaccination distribution has been modified recently to lend priority to mass vaccination sites. For a list of other possible vaccination sources, go to https://www.doh.wa.gov/YouandYourFamily/Immunization/VaccineLocations and scroll to Grays Harbor County.
Tuesday’s COVID numbers
Tuesday morning, Grays Harbor Public Health reported 19 new cases of COVID-19 in the county between Jan. 22 and Jan. 24, and one new hospitalization during that time frame. Total cases stand at 2,856, total hospitalizations at 137.
According to the state Department of Health, as of Sunday, 4,476 vaccine doses have been given in Grays Harbor County, and more than 34,000 molecular COVID-19 tests administered. More than 500,000 vaccinations have been given statewide.
Community partners
The incident management team said the mass vaccination site would not be possible without the cooperation of numerous local partners: Aberdeen Fire Department, Aberdeen Police Department, City of Aberdeen, City of Hoquiam, Grays Harbor Community Hospital, Grays Harbor County Fire and EMS agencies, Grays Harbor County law enforcement agencies, Grays Harbor Fire District #2, Hoquiam Fire Department, Hoquiam Police Department, Port of Grays Harbor, Summit Pacific Medical Center, and “countless volunteers in our community.”
