When can you get a COVID vaccine in Washington? Online tool helps you find out
As officials work to streamline the process of administering the COVID-19 vaccine, an online tool is available to help Washington residents determine when they may be eligible to get immunized, according to media reports.
Beginning Thursday, PhaseFinder will determine at what phase in the state’s distribution plan the user will be eligible for the vaccine. For now the tool will only determine if the user is eligible in phase 1.
The state is currently in phase 1A. Groups that are eligible for the vaccine in this phase include high-risk workers in health care settings, high-risk first responders — including EMS, police/law, firefighters, and paramedics — people of all ages with comorbidities and essential workers, according to the Washington State Department of Health.
How it works
The tool uses a survey to determine a resident’s eligibility. It will ask for the user’s age, county of residence, if they live in a “community-based, congregate living setting … where most individuals over 65 years of age are receiving care, supervision or assistance,” whether they work in a health care setting and if they plan to get the vaccine once eligible.
The Department of Health announced the tool’s roll out in a presentation in December, KREM reported.
Washington’s vaccine plan
The state has nearly 357,000 doses of the vaccine but only 102,000 doses have been administered as of Wednesday, according to KING.
Supply will meet demand during phase 2, allowing more groups to become eligible to get vaccinated, the Department of Health says. The state will likely have “sufficient supply” and slowing demand during phase 3, according to the agency.
In phase 3, “the department will identify populations with inequitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine and address those gaps,” the agency said.
Reopening plan
Gov. Jay Inslee announced Tuesday that some restrictions in the state will be eased the week of Jan. 11, according to KING. The state also revised its reopening plan to focus on a region-based approach to reopening instead of doing it by county, KING reported.
Inslee’s plan, titled “Healthy Washington — Roadmap to Recovery,” “aims to safely ease some restrictions while also maintaining crucial hospital capacity,” the governor’s website says. The state will be divided into eight regions based on health care systems during the two-phased plan, according to the Seattle Times.
Regions must meet four qualifications before moving into phase 2, including a certain percentage of decreases in case rates, hospital admission rates, an ICU occupancy rate below 90% and a less than 10% positivity rate, the Times reported.
The state has 248,580 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Wednesday and 3,541 deaths, according to the department of health.
This story was originally published January 6, 2021 at 11:25 AM with the headline "When can you get a COVID vaccine in Washington? Online tool helps you find out."