Washington seniors scramble to find vaccine

When phase 1B opened, more than 1.5 million people became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. That has seniors, 65 and older, scrambling to sign up.

“My friend was on the phone for two hours last night and, and another two hours this morning,” said Judy Le, who spoke to KIRO 7 as she walked in Bellevue Downtown Park on Tuesday. “She told me the availability was really difficult to nail down. She got online; she went to check different websites, the state website.”

When you are eligible, you can go to the Department of Health website to find vaccine locations.

They are listed by county. Each county has a list of providers and phone numbers and websites for people to schedule a vaccination appointment.

UW Medicine stated it already made 10,000 appointments for seniors.

Also included in the first part of phase 1b, known as B1, is everyone 50 and older who live in multi-generational households.

Hospitals stated they are ready to meet the new state guideline that requires them to use 95% of the vaccine they receive within a week. But the lack of communication about how many vaccine doses they will get is making it hard to schedule appointments.

At the Swedish vaccine clinic at Seattle U, it is only booking appointments a week in advance because of concerns about future supply.

Dr. Chris Dale, chief quality officer at Swedish, said staff members need to know what vaccine they’ll get so that they can plan for it. “Reliability in the supply chain because it’s very challenging to put appointments out,” he said.

Mandee Olsen is the chief quality officer at Kittitas Valley Health in Ellensburg, and she is having the same problem. “Without that information, we haven’t been able to schedule patients to come in or the staff to administer the vaccine,” she said.

Providers are careful not to over-promise.

“This is very emotional for people. I can’t imagine scheduling someone for an appointment and having to cancel it,” said June Altaras, chief quality, safety and nursing officer at MultiCare.

Some people are getting frustrated on the phone and online and showing up at hospitals to get the vaccine.

“We are really worried about having the public flood hospitals looking for vaccine,” said Cassie Sauer of Washington State Hospital Association. “As you all know, we have really strict visitors policies and rules to make sure we’re not bringing COVID into the hospitals.”

Hospitals and providers are asking people not to show up to get the vaccine without an appointment.

Cox Media Group