‘People are upset.’ Benton County vaccination site struggles with new registration mandate

Dozens of Tri-Citians got an unpleasant surprise when they showed up early on Tuesday at the Benton County Fairgrounds for their COVID-19 vaccination and were turned away.

“With the state mandating that we have to use their scheduling website, it’s as good as expected,” said Ben Shearer, a public information officer for the local team running the site. “People are upset.”

The change was made late Monday night by the direction of the state Department of Health after local officials had been saying the site is first-come, first-serve.

While police and firefighters were stationed at the fairgrounds and tried to alert people about the change, at least one person reported waiting in line for an hour before she learned of the change.

Shearer explained people need to sign up for an appointment using the online system at prepmod.doh.wa.gov. When you sign up, you are given a choice for a time of day at one of four state sites.

But getting your shot at that time isn’t guaranteed.

Shearer explained that people will need to schedule for the day and then come in and be prepared to wait.

If the site does not show any spots available, Shearer advised people to be patient and keep checking.

For folk having troubles or with no internet access, call 800-525-0127, though there are long wait times.

No shows

The state’s order may create another issue, Shearer said.

Other sites that have been taking appointments have been seeing about 10 percent of the people not showing up because some are scheduling more than one time slot.

“We have to have the vaccine ready that day for how many appointments are made,” he said. “Now what happens when 10 percent of your people don’t show up? Now you have vaccines sitting there that we have to give out or else they’re going to go bad.”

Local officials are trying to figure out how to make sure that vaccines don’t get wasted.

“This is a mandate from the state,” he said. “We are trying to play that system the best that we can.”

Appointments

While the change caused headaches and confusion for people who didn’t sign up in advance, the change was welcomed by others.

When Sam McKay drove by the fairgrounds on Monday, he saw people still waiting in line at 5 p.m., and he was glad he avoided the wait times. He then registered for a 10 a.m. appointment Tuesday.

The final doses of vaccine were handed out at 6:30 p.m. Monday to people who had been waiting in cars in line since about 10 a.m.

“It was really good,” McKay said. “I had actually driven by yesterday and it was just a mess. Preregistration is the only way to go. It is organized and the only way to go.“

The Richland resident arrived at 8 a.m. for his 10 a.m. appointment.

Others reported showing up at 8 a.m. for an 8:30 a.m. appointment, and they were still waiting by 10 a.m.

Bill and Karen Watson of Pasco learned about the change Monday and were able to get their appointments scheduled using FindYourPhaseWA.org.

“It was a little confusing,” Bill Watson said. “Phase Finder sends you to the web page that shows you all of the locations and on Friday, for example, none of the locations had vaccines so you couldn’t make appointments.”

On Monday, some of the links were live, but it wasn’t a simple process of clicking a link.

But they were happy to finally getting their vaccinations, and brought along a bag of fruit to share with those working at the fairgrounds.

“We really appreciate all of the work between the National Guard, the fire department, everybody working to get this organized in this unusual situation,” Karen Watson said.

Commissioners critical

Benton County commissioners and administrators criticized the state Tuesday, saying there has been a lack of advance communication since they learned the fairgrounds would be a mass vaccination site at the same time Gov. Jay Inslee announced it publicly.

The county owns the fairgrounds, so it has spent the past week coordinating with the state Department of Health, the Benton Franklin Health District, the local incident management team and the Washington National Guard.

“We received hundreds, and still are receiving hundreds, of phone calls to the fairgrounds every day wanting information about vaccines, wanting to sign up for vaccines,” said Deputy County Administrator Matt Rasmussen.

He told commissioners during their regular meeting Tuesday that the problem is the information they’re receiving keeps changing — from first-come, first-serve to a preregistration system with no appointments to actual appointment times, and back.

“We had people who made appointments through the system who then were showing up at the fairgrounds and who were understandably upset when they were turned away because there was no more vaccine available for that day,” said Rasmussen.

He explained that one problem with the scheduling system is while the state is giving them 500 injections a day, there is no limit to how many appointments can be made online per day.

As of 5:30 p.m. Monday, there were 687 appointments in the system, well over the Tri-Cities daily allocation.

Additionally, some people still believed it was on a first-come, first-serve basis, so 10th Avenue was lined with cars by 6 a.m. Tuesday, said Rasmussen.

“We had to bring all the people into the site because we obviously cannot back up traffic on a major street,” he said. “And then the people there are going car to car and checking for whether or not these people have an appointment. If you don’t have an appointment, they are asking you to come back another day.”

Public safety

Rasmussen said they’ve tried reaching out to Department of Health leadership, asking for advance notice before the state rolls out changes, but haven’t gotten too far.

“When the state keeps changing the rules, it makes it very difficult for us to shift gears and get that set up without a lot of confusion and a lot of angst from the public,” he said.

He asked for “a little bit of patience and understanding” from people since the changes and confusion are not coming down from county leaders.

“It’s being driven by Olympia and their lack of understanding of what’s going on here in the real world,” he said.

Commissioners were told there were people standing in the middle of 10th Avenue on Monday night, arguing with officers from KPD last night because they showed up with a slip that said they had an appointment, but the site had been closed since 10:30 that morning.

“It creates a major public safety issue. We don’t need our officers in those kind of confrontations. We don’t need people standing in traffic having arguments,” said Rasmussen. It’s just bad, and those kind of things can easily be resolved with a little bit more time to communicate the message out to the public.”

Chairman Jerome Delvin and Commissioner Will McKay thanked local workers who stepped up on short notice to get the site operating, and said hopefully things will smooth out.

This story was originally published January 26, 2021 at 12:49 PM.