SOUTH BEND — Pacific County officials and local healthcare providers ramped up the county’s fight against covid-19 in a big way last week, as they managed to put shots in the arms of more than 1,000 people at mass vaccination clinics in both north and south county.

The good news didn’t last for long, however, as vaccine providers in the county found out over the weekend that they would be supplied a total of just 100 doses — going to Ocean Beach Hospital — for this week from the state, putting a halt to any momentum in the effort to promptly vaccinate Pacific County’s elderly population.

Pacific County Health Director Katie Lindstrom said the county’s allotment of doses for this week — or lack of allotment of doses — is “insane.”

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” Lindstrom said. “Incredibly frustrating.”

It comes as the county is trying to move as quickly as possible through a vaccine waitlist with about 3,300 people on it, including 2,200 south county residents. Those on the waitlist will have to wait one week longer to receive the vaccine, as the 100 doses received for this week will go to those needing their second shot to complete the two-shot regimen required for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Pull Quote

‘The state made the decision to divert a lot of the vaccine this week to the mass clinics that they set up that are not accessible for people in Pacific County.’

Pacific County Health Director Katie Lindstrom

The county health department and its local partners — including Ocean Beach Hospital, Willapa Harbor Hospital and Peninsula Pharmacies, among others — each put in “big requests” for this week, Lindstrom said, after completely exhausting their supply last week to provide about 1,000 first doses and several hundred more second doses.

“The state made the decision to divert a lot of the vaccine this week to the mass clinics that they set up that are not accessible for people in Pacific County,” Lindstrom said. The closest of the state’s mass vaccination clinics is in Ridgefield, about two hours away.

The vaccine shortage for this week is especially disappointing, Lindstrom said, because the previous week proved that the county and local healthcare providers have the ability to vaccinate a large number of people in an efficient manner.

“That’s the frustrating part for us, because we can do that. We have the capacity, we have volunteers, we have staff, we have good partnerships with all of our providers. We have all of that, and it does not require any additional resources from the state,” Lindstrom said.

According to data from the Washington State Department of Health, about 8% of Pacific County residents have received the first of two vaccine doses, and another 1.5% have received two doses and are classified as being fully vaccinated. A total of 2,569 doses have been given in Pacific County as of Jan. 30, with the statewide total at 728,636 doses, up from 500,105 doses a week ago.

County hits 700-case milestone, adds two more deathsAs vaccination efforts continue to ramp up, covid-19 continues to spread throughout Pacific County, with the health department reporting 22 additional cases over the past seven days.

The three new cases announced on Feb. 1 brought the county’s total count to an even 700 cases since the pandemic began, with 26 cases currently active — down from 38 active cases at the same time last week. The case rate per 100,000 people in the county was 198.7 as of Monday, unchanged from a week ago.

The health department also announced last week that two more Pacific County residents have died due to complications of the virus, bringing the county’s toll to nine deaths. The county’s covid-19 death rate is 1.3%, and the hospitalization rate is 3.1%.

According to weekly zip code data disclosed by the department on Jan. 27, a clear majority of recently reported cases are of people residing in north county. A combined 11 new cases were attributed to people with a Raymond or South Bend address, bringing their total count to 304 and 160 cases, respectively. The only other community to be attributed an additional case was Seaview, which added one case, raising its total to 21. Another 10 cases have yet to be assigned to a community.

Wahkiakum County’s total case count increased by eight over the past week, bringing its total to 81 cases, with 16 potentially active cases. Clatsop County reported 17 new cases as of Jan. 28, increasing its total to 744 cases. Statewide confirmed covid-19 cases totaled 299,098 on Jan. 31, with 17,812 patients hospitalized and 4,318 fatalities reported since the pandemic began.