Snohomish County grapples with frustrations surrounding vaccine scheduling, low supplies

Many people in Washington state have reported difficulties in finding vaccination sites with available appointments and supplies of doses. In Snohomish County, health officials are balancing that with keeping sites from getting overwhelmed with patients.

Vaccine appointment process a headache for Washingtonians

Health departments in some counties choose to list places that may have a supply of COVID-19 vaccine doses, but Snohomish County’s health department is opting to keep that information under wraps.

“We want to preserve order and access at those sites for people who are there to get vaccines, as well as people who are there for other services,” Snohomish County Health Officer Chris Spitters said Tuesday. “I understand the desire on the one hand for transparency, and on the other hand for the facilities to not to get either inundated or field other convenience or security threats.”

That said, the county is also not currently accepting new appointments at any of its four mass vaccination clinics, citing a scarcity of available doses countywide. Of those four, only the county’s clinic in Arlington is administering vaccines to those who’ve already made appointments.

For local clinics that do receive additional doses of vaccine in the days ahead, those supplies will likely be extremely short-lived.

“Even at the amount of vaccine we’re getting, many of these sites at their capacity of operation would go through that amount of vaccine in one day,” Emergency Management Director Jason Biermann noted.

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According to Dr. Spitters, Snohomish County has been receiving “just a fraction” of what’s needed to satisfy current demand for vaccine doses.

“That’s what’s leading the frustrations, the heightened stress levels in our community, in what feels like trying to find the golden ticket to a vaccine appointment,” he said. “So we hear you, we understand it, but right now the numbers are just not in our favor for more than about 10% of people to get satisfied this week.”

For those experiencing scheduling problems, the county said Tuesday that it plans to roll out new technology to deal with the flood of people looking to receive doses. That will include the inclusion of a waitlist option, which Dr. Spitters anticipates will “help with some of the frustrations” people have been going through in recent weeks.

County officials will have more information about updated technology for vaccine registration “as that becomes more ready to launch.”

“Please know that we’re all working together with the health district, the state health district, and our community partners to improve what is in our control,” Spitters said.

You can keep up with the latest information on vaccine sites in Snohomish County here.

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