Jackson Co. chooses not to expand vaccination coverage early

MEDFORD, Ore.– In an effort to achieve President Biden’s goal of vaccinating everyone by may 1st, the Oregon Health Authority announced a list of counties approved to move to the next vaccination tier. The approval is based on how successfully the current tier of eligible citizens have been vaccinated. Jackson County so far, has vaccinated 19 percent of its population.

Klamath and Josephine County, both with a much smaller population than Jackson, have vaccinated just over 20 percent each.

Jackson County Public Health Director Dr. Jim Shames says the county wanted to concentrate on finishing what it started. He says, “We did not feel we were ready to move on. We wanted to focus on the folks at hand.”

According to the OHA, phase 1-b – group 6 includes people between the age of 45 and 64 with underlying health conditions. This group also includes farm workers, agricultural workers, the homeless, those displaced by wildfires, and more. Dr. Shames says Jackson County decided not to request approval to get early access to make sure everyone in the current group got every chance they could.

“It looked to us that there were a lot more elderly people, teachers and healthcare workers who were eligible to get vaccinated but hadn’t yet.”

Dr. Shames says the few days head start would only mean less vaccine in the arms of those who are wanting it now.

“Every time you opened up to a new group, you dilute the pool. You make it theoretically harder for the people in the previous group to find a slot to get vaccinated.”

Klamath county public health, on the other hand, says the current eligible group is happy to let others jump in line, so to speak.

“Some our 65 and older population waiting to be served by Johnson and Johnson. Having a needle prick once is much easier than having it twice,” this according to Klamath County Public Health officer Valeree Lane. She says the county worked together to do it’s due diligence to make sure it was the right decision. She adds that the importance of getting agricultural and farm workers vaccinated is a top priority.

“We’ve seen outbreaks at these kind of facilities. Its just a population that works very very hard and we want to make sure they’re able to work.”

Lane says the few days head start will be focused on helping community members understand where to get their vaccine, now that they’re eligible. Every Oregon county will be able to vaccinate those in phase 1-b group 6 starting march 29th.