PORTLAND, Ore. — On Monday, Feb. 8, 168,000 Oregonians who are 80 years old or older are eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine administered either at the Oregon Convention Center or the parking lot drive-through clinic at Portland International Airport.
But only 5,040 or about 3% of those 168,000 people will get a vaccine this week because of limited supplies.
"I want to say thank you to our seniors for your patience thus far and for your continued patience in the coming days and weeks,” said Oregon Governor Kate Brown on Friday.
Patience starts with waiting until Monday, Feb. 8, to sign up. You can use the automated scheduling tool on Oregon Health Authority's coronavirus page. Click on the orange ringed chat box at the bottom right to get started.
Seniors more comfortable with the phone can call 211 and asked to be transferred to the reservation call center. Operators will make sure you qualify, then book a time for you to get your vaccination. Both systems are expected to be very busy.
Also Monday, Oregon launches a new tool on its coronavirus website, called "Get Vaccinated Oregon", available in 11 different languages. It will allow you to figure out if you're eligible and sign up for email or text alerts about vaccine events in your area.
Here is more information, from the Oregon Department of Health:
While we can’t give every older adult an appointment as soon as they want one, there are different ways they can get linked to vaccine information and events. Here’s a list of the options that will be available to all seniors on Feb. 8:
- On Monday (Feb. 8), the Oregon Health Authority will launch a new tool at covidvaccine.Oregon.gov called Get Vaccinated Oregon, a new web-based tool that will allow people to determine if they are eligible for a vaccine and register to get email alerts or text notifications about vaccine events in their area. The Get Vaccinated Oregon tool will be open to all Oregonians and information will be available in 11 languages.
- 211: Older Oregonians can also text ORCOVID to 898211 to get text/SMS updates (English and Spanish only) or email ORCOVID@211info.org. If they can’t get their COVID-19 vaccine question answered on the website, by text, or by email, they can call 211 or 1-866-698-6155, which is open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, including holidays. Note: wait times may be longer due to high call volumes. There is an option to get a call back rather than wait on hold (in English and Spanish). Free interpretation is available for all other languages. TTY: Dial 711 or call 1-866-698-6155.
- Covidvaccine.oregon.gov: OHA’s vaccination website features facts about COVID-19 vaccines and hosts links to county websites and a statewide calendar of public vaccination clinics.
- Nursing home, independent living centers and other facilities: Pharmacy partners are vaccinating residents and staff at senior residences and care facilities. Residents (or family members) can ask their facility operator when their residence is scheduled for a vaccination clinic.
- Vaccine Information Tool: The current Vaccine Information Tool is a “chatbot” currently found on the covidvaccine.oregon.gov site. That will continue to be accessible. Residents can also use this tool to determine their vaccine eligibility. In addition, Oregonians who are eligible for a vaccine and live in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, Columbia and Marion counties (starting Feb. 8 for seniors) can use the chatbot to be linked to vaccine appointments at the Oregon Convention Center, the Woodburn Health Center and the Portland Airport.
Meanwhile, the vaccination goal is the same in southwest Washington, where Dr. Alan Melnick serves as health officer.
"You know, I just want people to get vaccinated and I want people to have the appropriate information that they need to protect themselves," said Melnick.
We've talked a lot about the state-run Clark County Fairgrounds site, which has vaccinated 6,702 people in 10 days of operation. But local counties and their partners are making the most of what little vaccine is left.
Last week, they went mobile, delivering more than 930 doses in Clark, Skamania and Cowlitz Counties, to people in 130 adult family care homes and five assisted and independent living facilities.
“We were able to get the vaccine to 930 people on Thursday and Friday so we have some more to go, but we hit a large amount of it so that felt really good,” said Melnick.
There is a lot of work to do vaccinating others in the area. Melnick said the Clark County Public Health online vaccination registration site has 30,000 people signed up. The number was 23,000 last week. The county is connecting those who have registered with health care providers, but vaccine supplies are limited and in large part used up by the fairgrounds site.
The fairgrounds site is set to administer 4,000 vaccinations Tuesday through Saturday this week. The signup site overloaded again on Sunday at 12 p.m., as it booked the 4,000 reservations in about 15 minutes.
While we can’t give every older adult an appointment as soon as they want one, there are different ways they can get linked to vaccine information and events.
Here is more information from Clark County Public Health:
The fairgrounds vaccination site is operated by the Washington State Department of Health, administering vaccines Tuesday through Saturday. They’re using the Albertsons/Safeway website to schedule. Here’s the direct link.
Vaccine supply is the biggest challenge right now. We have far more people eligible to be vaccinated than the available vaccines. We have some additional information about where people can look for appointments on our COVID-19 vaccine webpage. Again, due to limited vaccine supply, appointments are pretty limited everywhere. But these are the options we’re telling people about:
- The state has a website listing some pharmacies that have vaccine and may have appointments
- The state-operated vaccination site at the Clark County Fairgrounds
- Clark County Public Health also has a web form people can fill out and we can refer them to a local health care facility with vaccine. We do have a lot of people on the list and there are not a lot of appointments available, so it may take several weeks before you hear from a facility to schedule an appointment.