No COVID-19 vaccine here, yet

ODESSA – The Odessa hospital and clinic do not yet have any doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines for the prevention of Covid-19. Clinic manager Barb Schlimmer told The Record that they have been told that doses of vaccine will be coming and that Odessa will have 24 to 48 hours notice of when they will be delivered. In the meantime, Schlimmer said, staff members at the hospital, clinic and assisted-living facility are actively engaged in preparing and planning for inoculating the health-care providers, EMTs, police and firefighters who will be given first priority for receiving the vaccine. Current patients at risk will follow, then others who request the vaccine.

Although she cannot predict when the vaccine might arrive, Schlimmer says she is confident it will be soon. All of the required paperwork was completed and submitted on time, and it is now up to the Washington State Department of Health to determine the logistics of providing sufficient doses to those areas where the need is greatest.

Lincoln County currently has 241 cases of Covid-19 of which 15 are hospitalized, according to the State Dept. of Health’s Covid-19 Data Dashboard. A total of four deaths have been recorded in the county, amounting to 1.7 percent of the total cases, and 2,868 molecular tests have been performed. The site also reports that negative test results data from November 21-30, 2020 are currently incomplete and that death data have not been systematically updated since December 24, 2020 due to a processing issue that the Dept. is currently working to address as quickly as possible.

The health dept. also says that COVID-19 transmission rates are flattening but not enough to reverse the skyrocketing trends from early November.