Sunday evening a Seattle TV news feature reported that statewide, less than 30 percent of the hundreds of thousands of doses of coronavirus vaccine that have been received, and presently on hand, have been injected.

Health department officials from three or four counties all replied that they have begun planning, and are trying to identify sites appropriate for mass inoculation. 

Most responded that they are still trying to do the state Department of Health defined category “1a,” a relatively very small cohort, and generally easy to reach as they are almost a “captive” group.

This is not what the public should expect or tolerate. For almost the full 11 months of the pandemic we have known that a vaccine was in the works and that hundreds of millions of Americans would need to be vaccinated. Planning, one would expect, would have been taking place from the very beginning for the eventual arrival of that vaccine. 

To still be planning now is inexcusable — it’s like waiting for the earthquake to plan emergency earthquake response.

The public health, as well as the very foundations of our economy, demand a more effective and rapid response.

Our neighbors in Sequim, in conjunction with the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, announced a few days ago that they will begin mass vaccinations Thursday, Jan. 14 of all residents age 70 and above, as well as their domestic partners. In order to do so they plan to involve numerous local agencies, and it is their intention to complete 5,000 vaccinations by the end of this month. Their plan, already long in the making, is to do mass drive-through vaccinations in a local park. In order to do so they plan to involve numerous local agencies all working together.

We would do well to learn from their efforts.

Mark Roye
PORT TOWNSEND