PORTLAND, Ore — On Tuesday, thousands of people who missed their COVID-19 shots because of nasty weather in Southwest Washington got a chance to catch up with a special drive-through event at the Clark County fairgrounds.
Cars and trucks idled for as long as 2-3 hours as drivers waited for a COVID-19 vaccine shot. After waiting for months, a couple hours were no big deal.
“I'd wait all day to get a shot,” said a man in a pickup truck. “We're too old to fool around,” said the woman sitting next to him.
The drive-through effort comes at a time when Washington state is struggling with its vaccine supply. The state said it appears some areas did not plan well for second shots and used all their supply just for first shots.
This resulted in requests for 170,000 second doses when the state planned for just 92,300, a difference of 77,700 shots.
Using its weekly supply to cover those second doses means Washington will have just 36,000 doses for first shots this week, way fewer than the 128,500 doses they expected.
Meanwhile in Portland, the Brooklyn Pharmacy became one of the first pharmacies in the area to offer COVID shots to those who qualify. Their website showed lots of appointments Tuesday.
Owner Pat Hubbell said he's getting about 250 doses a week.
“It’s exciting and its anxiety producing and we're glad to be a part of it," Hubbell said. "Everybody that has come in has been very patient, very amenable to any changes we had to make; but so far, we've only had to make a few changes. We're vaccinating people on a fairly routine and efficient manner."
He said it's best to sign up for a day and time on the national website associated with his pharmacy, www.healthmartconvidvaccine.com. The site appeared to be down at times Tuesday.
Brooklyn Pharmacy is part of the national program the Biden administration is supporting.
The White House on Tuesday reported the federal government will increase doses sent to pharmacies nationwide to a total of 13.5 million doses a week. That’s about double what it was just a month ago.
Finally, the four big health organizations in the Portland area -- Kaiser, Legacy, OHSU and Providence -- said they did not have any loss of vaccine because of power outages from the winter storm.
However, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) said it is “assisting Oregon COVID-19 sites that have lost power to their freezers by moving doses to powered sites to avoid spoilage.” The OHA did not report where that is happening.
Have a news tip or comment for Pat? Email him at pdooris@kgw.com.