JOSEPHINE CO., -Ore.- Josephine County’s vaccination roll out has been slowed by a lack of doses of the vaccine.
The county’s public health department says its taking some large steps to fix that issue.
“If we tried to do a vaccination clinic with the vaccines we do have on hand, we’d do twenty people and have to shut the door, so that’s not very viable,” says Josephine County Public Health Director Mike Weber.
In Josephine County, actually getting vaccines into the county is the issue causing slow rollout.
“We’ve only received three hundred doses here at Josephine Public Health,” Weber says. He said his department is working with Asante to address that issue.
“We’re able to partner with Asante system and they are going to provide a large quantity of the vaccine that they have been receiving to us to help roll out this large vaccination clinic.” Those large vaccination clinics will be aided by the National Guard.
“We actually submitted our request jointly with Jackson County, so we have a regional request in. Jackson County is going to be getting support to provide vaccines a few days before us, and then when the National Guard finishes up there, they’ll be coming to us on the 24th.” According to Weber, these large-scale events are more effective than a restricted approach.
“It just takes a lot of effort to try and administer it ‘onesy-twosy’ when you have one thousand or two thousand doses on hand.” He says the biggest hope is that these clinics can move the county quickly through Phase One of the state’s vaccination plan, which would bring them closer to giving shots to the public.
“We have to get through these first phases before we can get to actually vaccinating the community. That’s our highly priority right now. And if the quickest way to get that done is these large vaccination clinics, then that’s the way we are going to go.”
According to Weber, they plan to hold the vaccination clinics on January 23rd and 24th. The county is still finalizing times and location.
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