12% of Tri-Citians receive at least 1st COVID shot. When will more be eligible?

The next group of people eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Washington state may have to wait a few weeks yet.

Heather Hill, the infections disease supervisor for the Benton Franklin Health District, discussed the status of vaccinations on this week’s Kadlec on Call podcast.

The focus now is on getting those already eligible for the vaccine both doses, she said.

That’s been limited by vaccine manufacturing and distribution that has not kept up with demand.

The Washington state Department of Health said Wednesday that providers requested more than 456,000 doses for early March, according to Hill. But just 285,000 doses are expected to be shipped to the state then.

“We definitely are not getting the vaccine to the level any of us were hoping for at this time,” she said. “But we keep being assured that in the near future the rate of vaccines arriving in our state will pick up — just unfortunately not at this time.”

Among those who could be vaccinated in the next phase of eligibility are essential workers, including teachers, agriculture workers and food processing employees. It also could include people with at least two underlying health conditions.

About 8% of the population of Benton and Franklin counties have received a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and just under 4% of the population are fully vaccinated.

Currently approved vaccines require two shots for maximum effectiveness.

“I highly, highly encourage people to get the second dose,” Hill said.

It is particularly important for those who are most vulnerable to severe cases of COVID-19, including people 60 and older and those with underlying health conditions such as heart disease or diabetes.

In Benton and Franklin counties, 48,660 first and second dose shots have been given and about 10,800 people are now fully vaccinated, according to the Washington state Department of Health.

Most of those are health care workers, nursing home residents and staff, and people ages 65 and older. The two counties have more than 40,000 people who are at least 65, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Some people ages 50 and older living in multigenerational households also are eligible to receive the vaccine now.

Gov. Jay Inslee said earlier that he wanted to get at least half of those 65 and older and those eligible in multigenerational households vaccinated, before opening vaccine eligibility in the state to more people.

Tri-City area firefighters are preparing to give vaccine to the homebound as soon as next week, Hill said. The Benton Franklin Health District will provide the vaccine.

Because they need to wait after giving a vaccine to make sure there is not a rare, serious reaction, they will use the time to check smoke detectors and look for tripping hazards in the homes.

For more information, call the health district at 509-460-4200.

Drive-thru vaccine clinic

The number of people being vaccinated locally is increasing rapidly this week as sites, like the mass vaccination drive-thru clinic at the Tri-Cities fairgrounds, give out both this week’s allocation and last week’s weather-delayed allocation.

On Tuesday, a new record was set at the Benton County Fairgrounds, with 1,700 shots given.

If you don’t have an appointment there and it is time to receive your second dose at the fairgrounds this week, keep checking prepmod.doh.wa.gov for appointments that open up due to cancellations and no shows.

You can also call the state’s COVID-19 Assistance Hotline at 800-525-0127 and press # to make an appointment if any are available.

Some appointments are reserved for those without computer access.

Those who received their first Moderna vaccine at the fairgrounds on Jan. 25 but did not get an appointment Friday or Saturday for a second dose should come to the fairgrounds between 8:30 and 11:30 a.m. those days to see if extra vaccine is available, Hill said.

Just 500 Moderna vaccines were given at the fairgrounds and this may be the only week that second doses of Moderna are available there. The rest of the vaccine administered has been made by Pfizer. The same brand should be used for first and second doses.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in Washington. the state says nearly 432,000 state residents are fully vaccinated.

As of Wednesday, more than 2 million doses had been delivered to the state.

On the national level, 88.6 million doses have been distributed and 66.4 million shots of the approved vaccines have been given, according to CDC statistics. The population of the United States is about 328 million.

Tri-Cities COVID cases

The Tri-Cities area has 70 more confirmed COVID cases, the Benton Franklin Health district announced Thursday.

It brings the number of cases for the week — starting with the weekend — to an average of 43 per day, after an usually low new case count on Tuesday.

That compares to 46 new cases a day last week, which continued the decline in recent weeks. In the previous three weeks 64, 76 and 94 cases on average a day were reported.

Over the past seven days Benton and Franklin counties have had an average of 15 new cases per day per 100,000 people.

That compares to 11 new daily cases per 100,000 in Washington state over seven days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday.

The national rate for the same period was nearly 20 per 100,000, with just four states with lower rates than Washington.

New Jersey had the highest rate in the United States at 34. Hawaii had the lowest at just over 3.

Benton and Franklin county hospitals reported 29 patients being treated for COVID-19 as of Thursday, down from as many as 89 in late June.

The COVID patients on Thursday accounted for 7% of the 407 patients at the Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and Prosser hospitals.

The new COVID cases confirmed in the Tri-Cities area on Thursday included 49 in Benton County and 21 in Franklin County.

Since the start of the pandemic 14,564 cases have been confirmed with positive test results in Benton County residents, 10,874 in Franklin County residents and 25,438 for the two counties combined.

The local health district has confirmed 286 deaths from complications of COVID-19. It reports new deaths weekly on Fridays.

Washington state

The Washington state Department of Health reported 882 new cases of COVID-19 and 31 deaths from the disease Wednesday.

Statewide totals from the illness caused by the coronavirus are 336,565 cases and 4,912 deaths. Those numbers are up from 335,683 cases and 4,881 deaths Tuesday. The case total includes 17,888 cases listed as probable. DOH revises previous case and death counts daily.

Washington’s population is estimated at about 7.6 million, according to U.S. Census figures from July 2019.

As of Feb. 5, the date with the most recent complete data, 81 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 were admitted to Washington state hospitals.

Preliminary reports indicate that average daily hospital admissions were downward trending to 46 in mid-February.

Out of the state’s total staffed intensive care unit beds (1,202) approximately 78.8% (947) were occupied by patients Tuesday. Of those staffed ICU beds, 12.6% (152) held suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients.

Cases by county

According to DOH data, King County continues to have the highest numbers in Washington, with 83,357 cases and 1,380 deaths. Pierce County is second in cases, with 37,632. Spokane County has the second-highest number of deaths, at 551.

All counties in Washington have cases. Only 12 of the state’s 39 counties have case counts of fewer than 1,000.

There have been more than 28.3 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 504,775 deaths from the virus in the United States as of Wednesday evening, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has the highest number of reported cases and deaths of any nation.

More than 2.4 million people have died from the disease worldwide. Global cases exceed 112 million.

Craig Sailor of The (Tacoma) News Tribune contributed to this report.

This story was originally published February 25, 2021 at 1:44 PM.