By Pepper Fisher

Sequim – The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe has announced an ambitious schedule to get thousands of Sequim area residents vaccinated in the next 2 months, with sign-ups now reaching into April.

The Tribe and a small army of volunteers and local agencies intend to vaccinate 1000 people per day on an additional 3 days in February, 6 days in March and so far, 2 days have been announced for April with more dates to be announced later. That’s 11,000 first doses just in the Sequim area in the next 8 weeks, IF a steady supply of doses continues from the state.

The Tribe’s Health Services Director, Brent Simcosky, sounds confident that it will.

“We had the Department of Health’s new secretary. Dr. Umair Shaw come visit us about a week ago and we showed him our operation. We think that we’ve been showing the State that we can do it, that we’ve done it quickly, we can do it efficiently. So, we think we’ll get it but we’ll see.”

The next conversation is: Who will be next in line for shots when everyone 65-and-older is vaccinated? Simcosky says the Tribe can set its own parameters, but they try to stay in line with state and county guidelines.

We reached out to County Health Officer Dr. Berry for an answer.

“The next group that we’ll be moving to, at least by early March, if not by the last weekend of February, will be the state-defined B2 group, which includes workers over the age of 50, higher risk because of the kind of work that they do or the kind of place that they live. Grocery store workers, people who work at food banks, school teachers, and any kind of frontline school staff who’s participating in in-person learning. It does also include the jails and prisons, transit. It also includes agriculture workers who are working very close together.”

The goal is to get enough people vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.

“You know, for herd immunity in Clallam County, it’s just a little bit over 50,000. And, you know, NOHN in PA is, I think they’re going to be ramping up to where they were doing about 2,000 on their weekend. And so if you look at what they’re going to be doing until May and you look at what we’re doing, I think it’s very possible this County could be at herd immunity sometime in May, if people come forward to get their vaccines.”

While the Sequim program will begin registering new vaccinations Thursday at 9:00am, new Port Angeles registrations won’t begin until next week on Wednesday, also at 9:00am.

Here is the schedule for the upcoming DOSE 1 vaccine clinics at Carrie Blake Park.

Registration Open Date	Sequim Vaccination Events	Numbers
Thursday – Feb 4th Online registration opens at 9 am	Tuesday – Feb. 9th Tuesday – Feb. 23rd Thursday – Feb. 25th	5 hours each day 8am-1pm 200 slots per hour.
Wednesday – March 3rd Online registration opens at 9 am	Thursday – March 11th Saturday – March 13th Tuesday – March 16th Thursday – March 18th Saturday – March 20th	5 hours each day 8am-1pm 200 slots per hour.
Wednesday – March 17th Online registration opens at 9 am	Tuesday – March 30th Thursday – April 1st Saturday – April 3rd	5 hours each day 8am-1pm 200 slots per hour.
Wednesday – March 31st Online registration opens at 9 am	*Tuesday – April 6th   *… and other April dates as those schedules are decided	5 hours each day 8am-1pm 200 slots per hour.

 

Register online at: http://vaccine.clallam.net/register. Registration will be in one-hour time blocks between 8 am and 1 p.m. each day. Once online registration is complete, a ticket with date and time should be printed and brought with you. Each person/couple in a vehicle must have a registration ticket.

For those people who do not have internet access, the call center number is 360-681-3447. Volunteers at the call center will use the online system to make an appointment for you. Your registration will be on file at the check-in booth.

 For those people who need Dose #2: No need to make an appointment. Simply check-in on the date and time given to you when you received your first dose.