Vaccination rates are falling. COVID cases are rising. Will Pierce County ever reopen?
News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. 5/8/2021 Debbie Cockrell, The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)
May 8 Pierce County, you have a COVID vaccine problem: Not enough people are showing up to get it.
The why to the story is complicated. There is an abundance of places to get vaccinated, but appointment slots are going unfilled.
Amid steadily rising cases, the county seems to have hit what one health department representative described as the tipping point of supply and demand.
Kayla Scrivner, immunization branch director for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, told the Board of Health on Wednesday that mass vaccine sites started to see a noticeable drop-off in recent weeks.
Pierce County works to improve COVID vaccine access as wider eligibility looms
News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. 3/13/2021 Debbie Cockrell and Josephine Peterson, The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)
Mar. 13 Amid recent federal and state announcements of accelerated timelines for COVID-19 vaccinations and reopening the economy and schools, Pierce County is continuing to adapt its own systems to keep up.
Adding call center access for those without computers, improving the technical side of registering and sending information to the state, and improving the flow through the mass vaccination clinics have all been ongoing works of progress.
According to Kayla Scrivner, immunization branch director for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department: We re adding more and more staff to that call center and have been capturing and tracking that . And through social media, if people reach out to us, we make sure they know about future events, or if they ve had trouble registering
Get us more vaccine, Inslee told during tour of vaccination clinic in Puyallup
News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. 3/5/2021 Craig Sailor, The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)
Mar. 4 Gov. Jay Inslee asked staff, volunteers and managers of a Puyallup COVID-19 mass vaccination clinic Thursday if they could handle a coming surge in vaccine doses.
The clinic, held at a parking lot across from the Washington State Fairgrounds, was to administer second doses of the Moderna vaccine to 2,500 people. What would you need to do to get to 3,500? Inslee asked the group.
More vaccine, he was told.
More is coming soon, he replied. But getting those doses into arms could be a challenge.
Craig Sailor: Pierce County s first mass vaccination event brings relief, cheers and honks to 1,700 people
News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. 1/27/2021 Craig Sailor, The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)
Jan. 26 There were whoops, honking and sighs of relief as the first of 1,700 people got their COVID-19 vaccinations in a free mass clinic Tuesday morning Pierce County s first. People are happy, Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department nurse Carolyn Cook said. They re very happy to be vaccinated.
TPCHD and partners MultiCare Health System, Pierce County Department of Emergency Management and Virginia Mason Franciscan Health held the day-long clinic at Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood for eligible vaccine recipients.