SPOKANE, Wash — Health care providers throughout the Inland Northwest are receiving their first shipments of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.
Providence Health Care has received a shipment of coronavirus vaccines and will begin vaccinating its high-risk caregivers starting Friday.
On Wednesday, the Spokane Regional Health District said the county had allocated 3,900 vaccines for the first week of the Pfizer vaccine being available. As of Wednesday, it was unclear how many doses of the vaccine were in Spokane County.
On Thursday, Whitman County received it's first shipment of the vaccine. Washington State University is storing the doses in ultra-cold freezers.
“Having this vaccine will allow protection of both individuals involved in our healthcare systems and the most vulnerable members of our community,” said Guy Palmer, professor of pathology and infectious diseases and one of the leaders of the WSU's COVID-19 task force. “By doing those two things, we have a chance to really make a huge difference in a short period of time and reduce the potential of overwhelming our healthcare systems with hospitalizations from COVID-19.”
The Panhandle Health District received their first shipment of the vaccine on Thursday. The health district is set to receive 1,950 doses of the vaccine. On Thursday, they received 975 doses. PHD spokesperson Katherine Hoyer said they are storing the vaccines until they can distribute them to their health care partners.
This shipment represents about 14% of all vaccines given to Idaho. PHD has made partnerships to have dry ice on hand to help store the vaccines.
The priority groups for who gets vaccinated are those in one of two settings: health care facilities and long-term care facilities. The way the vaccine will be distributed to each group is actually different.
Health care facilities
Health care facilities will receive vaccines from the Washington State Department of Health. Right now, we know that Spokane County facilities will receive 3,900 doses from the very first batch.
A lot of those doses will go to the region's major hospitals.
Providence confirmed Wednesday it received just under 4,000 doses of the vaccine. Spokesperson Beth Hegde said they will start giving it to high-risk caregivers starting on Friday. High-risk caregivers can include, but are not limited to, caregivers in the emergency department, ICU, respiratory therapists, hospitalists and more.
Hegde said these doses are not enough to cover all of its high risk caregivers but they are confident in future supplies.
MultiCare confirmed on Wednesday that they'll receive a shipment next week. They couldn't give specifics on time or dosage numbers.
Both organizations also confirmed none of the vaccines will be available to the general public. They'll go to the highest risk workers, the ones most directly exposed to the virus, and even then this first batch won't be enough to cover everyone.
Kootenai Health is scheduled to receive around 1,300 doses. PHD said it polled the rest of their health care providers across the district, including home health providers, and asked them to provide an amount that they would need for the first shipment knowing how limited it is.
Long-term care facilities
These facilities, such as nursing and retirement homes, have been a repeat source of major outbreaks in Spokane and throughout the state.
Because the residents are older and often have other complicating conditions, these outbreaks are also quite deadly, so long-term care facilities have been given top priority.
However, such facilities won't be getting their vaccines from the state. There's actually a separate program just for them.
A partnership was established between the federal government and major pharmacies to help distribute vaccine to long-term care facilities.
We called around to some facilities in the area and confirmed that many of them — including the Spokane Veterans Home, The Gardens on University, and Evergreen Fountains — have signed up to get vaccines from CVS or Walgreens.
However, none of the facilities had any information on how many doses they might get or when they might get them. A representative for Walgreens also could not provide detailed information.
Everyone else
It will be a while yet before most folks will have access to a vaccine. There are several tiers of priority groups to go through, and at this point we still don't know when the very top groups will receive a vaccine locally, much less how long it will take before the whole group is covered.