Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
DAVENPORT – As state leadership in Olympia touts the success of four mass vaccination clinics inoculating thousands in Spokane, Wenatchee, Clark County and Kennewick with shots aimed at preventing COVID-19, the Lincoln County Health Department continues to wonder how many-or few-doses it will receive to give those eligible here.
This week, it received zero.
Health department public administrator Ed Dzedzy shared that fact with the Lincoln County Commissioners Feb. 1, noting that Lincoln Hospital was expected to receive 100 doses Feb. 4 as of press time, but none were allocated to the health department.
“It’s frustrating when the news touts the mass vaccination clinics and the 3,000 doses,” Dzedzy told the commissioners. “It leaves rural counties behind.”
The department has been vaccinating EMS and fire first responders, law enforcement, public health workers, behavior health crisis responders, high risk school staff and senior living residents and workers. Lincoln Hospital, meanwhile, has been vaccinating hospital healthcare workers and EMS, in-patients, while Odessa Hospital has vaccinated its staff and patients, as well as senior living residents and Odessa School high risk staff.
The county needs to vaccinate roughly 6,000 people to reach 70% vaccination levels that state and federal leadership often discusses. If and when Lincoln Hospital successfully distributes all 100 shots it is scheduled to receive, 1,000 shots will have been given in the county total.
But the health department doesn’t find out how many doses it’ll receive in a week until the Friday before or Monday of. It makes planning who can receive the vaccine next difficult, Dzedzy lamented.
“I want to say we can move quickly, but I don’t know how quickly it’s going to happen,” he said. “We can get the job done if we’ve got the vaccine to do it.”
The health department applied to receive 300 doses this week, but the state’s allotment delivered a goose egg.
Dzedzy said the health department is still looking into mass vaccination clinics if it can receive the necessary dosage, which would likely occur first in Reardan and Odessa.
“They’re getting hit the hardest right now,” Dzedzy said. “We want to hit Wilbur, Almira and Creston too, but the other two are more at-risk right now.”
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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