VANCOUVER, Wash. — In Clark County, tens of thousands of people that are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine are on a waiting list to receive their first dose. The county says Washington state is not sending them enough vaccines compared to counties similar in population size.
"I remember a couple weeks ago it was at 23,000," says Dr. Alan Melnick with Clark County Public Health. "Now it's at 37,000 people who are still waiting for vaccine."
Melnick says that the lack of vaccines sent to Clark County from the state has become more apparent in the last month or more.
"The amount of vaccine that we're getting doesn't come close to the capacity of our providers."
There are three large providers in Clark County: Legacy Health, PeaceHealth Southwest and the Vancouver Clinic.
A spokesperson for the Vancouver Clinic says the clinic has asked that every location be allowed to administer the vaccine, but only two sites have been approved.
The Clinic can administer 3,000 doses a week and for the week starting February 22 it asked for 1,770 first doses but only received 1,100 second doses. They said the clinic also received 54 first-dose shots from the county to cover previously scheduled first-dose appointments.
"Some of the providers had to stop giving first doses because they were worried about having enough second doses to give to the people who needed them," Melnick said.
Clark County Public Health looked at the amount of vaccine being sent by the state to counties. They compared 15 counties, the five highest, lowest and average populations.
Clark County ranked 14 out of 15 of doses given per 1,000 residents.
Clark County is the fifth most populated county in the state of Washington. Only Pierce, King, Snohomish and Spokane have more people living in those counties.
It is also one of the least vaccinated counties in terms of the percentage of population vaccinated. According to the state's dashboard, last updated Saturday, just over 8 percent of residents in Clark County have started their vaccination.
Melnick's frustration is with counties getting more doses that are similar in size. According to the above chart, there are 488,241 people that live in Clark County, just over 45,000 have received their first dose.
In comparison, Spokane County has around 30,000 more residents and received over 30,000 more doses of the vaccine.
"I really don't have an explanation as to why our allocation was so much less than many other counties in the state," Melnick said.
A spokesperson for the state Department of Health said in part, "DOH knew a few counties were experiencing a gap in vaccine allocation largely due to second dose reallocations in recent weeks. In an effort to solve this issue, we reached out to those counties over the weekend and offered them the Pfizer vaccine. We followed up with them again today."
This week, Clark County only administering second dose shots and did not take any appointments for those needing first doses.