SNOHOMISH COUNTY, Wash. — For six months, the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management worked on a plan to open mass COVID-19 vaccination sites. But just weeks into those sites being up and running, most of them had to temporarily shut down.
"We did not want to put the community in the position of waiting in a long line, hoping they would be able to get vaccinated only to find out that we had run out of vaccine at a site and have to turn folks away,” said Jason Biermann, the director of the Department of Emergency Management.
“We’re certainly not going to ask them to open a site and staff it when there’s no vaccine available, nor do we want to, you know, communicate to our residents that we have sites that are sitting staffed but without any ability to push out vaccines,” he continued.
The county has the capacity to administer 50,000 doses a week, but it doesn’t have enough vaccine to even run the five mass vaccination sites that are set up and ready to go.
"We now have five sites that could be available to provide mass vaccinations for members of our community. I have to emphasize 'could be available,' because unfortunately we do not have the vaccine supply to keep all of those open,” Biermann said.
While county health officials said they plan to reopen the sites this week, only one was open Monday and Tuesday.
The site at Arlington Municipal Airport stayed open, while the sites at Paine Field, Edmonds Community College and the Evergreen State Fairgrounds closed.
The county also just set up its newest mass vaccination site at Boom City in Tulalip. It's not open yet, but it's ready to go as soon as the county has enough doses.
"The problem continues to be the supply of vaccine,” said Snohomish County Health Officer, Dr. Chris Spitters.
Spitters said the county relies on the federal government and the state for allocations of the COVID-19 vaccine, and the number of doses isn't growing as they'd hoped.
Last week Snohomish County received 17,000 doses, and this week it's getting even less, about 15,000 doses.
"It's just a fraction of what we need it to be to satisfy the demand to address the frustrations that everyone is experiencing and to fulfill the desire that everyone in the county must have,” he said.
While many are struggling to find an appointment for their first dose, some people in Snohomish County needing their second dose were left hanging after being told to fend for themselves to make appointments.
“We are aware that there are a number of folks who received first vaccinations at, in particular, at our Monroe site. We are working diligently with a new technology that we will be rolling out to make sure that folks can get their second appointment scheduled and also a technology that will allow us, from the outset, to schedule first and second doses at all of our sites, and we believe create a waitlist with that technology as well,” Biermann explained.
"I realize it's frustrating, but I don't think it's dangerous what's going on with these challenges,” said Spitters.
He defended the county's decision at a media briefing Tuesday, not to schedule second dose appointments when giving the first shot.
"The estimated short-term benefit of that single dose is about 90% efficacy. And so we're trying to interrupt an emergency, on the one hand we want to do the best we can for all individuals, try to optimize their personal medical experience by getting that second dose as soon as possible, but if it doesn't happen, you know, right on time, as planned it's not going to be a big failure,” he said.
The new technology Biermann mentioned is expected to be released sometime next week.