Katie Lindstrom

SOUTH BEND — Good news arrived in Pacific County on Monday, after a frustrating previous week where local covid-19 vaccination efforts were largely stagnant due to a lack of supply from the state.

The Pacific County Health and Human Services Department announced on Feb. 8 that this week’s allocation of vaccine from the Washington State Department of Health will allow the county and its partnering providers to administer about 1,000 first doses and all previously scheduled second doses this week.

According to data from the state Department of Health, about 9.2% of Pacific County residents have received the first of two vaccine doses, and another 2% have received two doses and are classified as being fully vaccinated. A total of 3,183 doses have been given in Pacific County as of Feb. 6, with the statewide total at 942,166 doses, up from 728,636 doses a week ago.

Setting the record straight

Calls to schedule appointments for upcoming mass vaccination clinics began on Monday, as the county works to put a dent into its pair of waitlists for north and south county residents. Combined, the waitlists include more than 4,000 people, and the county and local providers will continue to go through the waitlists — in the order that a person completed the form and was added to the respective list — for the current phase.

Katie Lindstrom, director of the Pacific County Health and Human Services Department, is urging people not to call with questions about whether they were added to the list, or what their number in line is. By having to field a deluge of incoming calls, county personnel are unable to focus as much time on calling those on the waitlist to schedule vaccine appointments.

“[The incoming calls] are really slowing us down from being able to schedule appointments,” Lindstrom said. “And I understand wanting your waitlist number … but people just need to kind of trust the process. If you’re on the list, we’ll call you when the vaccine’s available.”

Pull Quote

‘Our big thing is that we have thousands of people on the list, and so we just really want to ensure that the people who 100% qualify, by definition, are prioritized. And we can’t make exceptions for individual cases, because once we make one exception it’s just a waterfall.’

Katie Lindstrom

Director of the Pacific County Health and Human Services Department

For those wanting to know what number they are on the waitlist, email info1@pacificcountyhealth.com. The county will respond back within three business days. If you want to confirm that you’ve been added to the waitlist, the following message will show up on your screen after submitting the Google Form: “You have been added to Pacific County’s COVID-19 vaccine waitlist. Once we have enough vaccine to offer you a dose, someone from Pacific County (or one of our partners) will call you to schedule an appointment.”

Lindstrom also stressed that only those who are currently eligible to receive the vaccine — with the most recently eligible group including those 65 and older, and those 50 or older living in certain multigenerational households — should complete the form to be added to the waitlist. County staff is verifying each individual on the waitlist to ensure that they are not trying to receive the vaccine before they are eligible to do so.

“Our big thing is that we have thousands of people on the list, and so we just really want to ensure that the people who 100% qualify, by definition, are prioritized. And we can’t make exceptions for individual cases, because once we make one exception it’s just a waterfall,” Lindstrom said.

Lindstrom also addressed the continued confusion over which individuals between 50 and 64 who are living in a multigenerational household are currently eligible to receive the vaccine. The intent of this group being eligible, she said, is to provide protection for people such as grandparents who are taking care of grandchildren, and who are more vulnerable to developing a severe case of the virus that could be unknowingly brought into the house by the child. A parent caring for a child is not eligible under this phase, nor is an adult child caring for an elderly parent — although the elderly parent would be eligible.

County virus activity stagnant

Virus activity in Pacific County stayed stagnant for a third consecutive week, as the health department reported 23 new cases over the past seven days.

The five new cases announced on Feb. 8 put the county’s total count to 723 cases since the pandemic began nearly a year ago, with 29 cases currently active. The case rate per 100,000 people over a two-week period remained at 198.7 for a third consecutive week, remarkably.

According to weekly zip code data disclosed by the department on Feb. 3, a vast majority of recently reported cases are of people residing in north county. A combined 26 new cases were attributed to people with a Raymond or South Bend address, bringing their total count to 322 and 168 cases, respectively. The only other community to be attributed an additional case was Naselle, which added two cases, raising its total to 32.

Last week was the first time that the county health department attributed zero new cases to any Long Beach Peninsula communities since it began releasing weekly data in late November. Raymond and South Bend comprise at least 68% of the county’s total case count, while the peninsula’s communities combine to make up 23% of the county’s total.

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 19 new cases as of Feb. 8, increasing its total to 763 cases. Statewide confirmed covid-19 cases totaled 307,189 on Feb.7, with 18,480 patients hospitalized and 4,451 fatalities reported since the pandemic began.

Washington state continues to be one of the best performing states when it comes to case counts and hospitalizations. According to the Covid-19 Tracking Project, Washington’s average daily new covid-19 cases per 100,000 people over the past seven days is 16, less than half of the national average of 34 and better than all but three states. Covid-related hospitalizations in the state are currently 100 per 1 million people, far below the national average of 247 and better than all but 10 states.