Vaccine distribution frustrates Washingtonians. Officials urge patience

As we've been reporting this week, the state made a big change to who's now eligible for a coronavirus vaccine, but Washington state still doesn’t have that many doses.

KUOW's Eilis O'Neill has been following how that's playing out.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

This was a big week. Clarify for us, who is now eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine?

The first group — health care workers, first responders, people who live or work in a nursing or retirement home — are all still eligible. Now, they've added everyone 65 or older, and also everyone 50 or older who lives in a multi-generational household.

The state has a pretty wonky definition of multi-generational. It basically means someone who can't take care of themselves and has a full-time caregiver, or someone who lives with and cares for a grandchild, a niece, or a nephew.

Now that the 65 and older group is eligible, does that mean that most of the folks in the first group have been vaccinated already?

It depends on where you live. In King County, not yet. That's because King County has nearly half of the state's health care workers and nursing home residents and staff, but we've only gotten about a quarter of the vaccines in Washington state. There's a long way to go.

The good news is that nursing and retirement homes have kind of a parallel vaccine system. They won't be competing for vaccines with the general public. Their vaccines will continue apace.

About those folks who are in this newly eligible group, and we're talking about a lot of people, how do they actually go about getting a vaccine shot?

There are a couple of ways. They might get it from their healthcare provider. Places like Kaiser, UW Medicine, and The Polyclinic are trying to get vaccine doses from the state and give them to patients. Most of the time, patients would schedule that through their normal appointment scheduling mechanism, whatever that was, phone or online.

Pharmacies like Walgreens and Safeway are also trying to get doses to offer to the public. And healthcare organizations and state and local governments are also opening up high volume vaccination sites. Swedish hospital said on a call this week that they're looking into opening a vaccination site at one of the sports arenas in Seattle, though they kept which one a secret.

I'm glad you brought up these new mass vaccination sites. Do people need an appointment there to get a vaccine?

For the most part, yes, absolutely. That's the sticking point. A lot of people are finding it's really hard, and in some cases impossible, to get an appointment.

That's because the state doesn't have nearly enough doses for all the folks who are now eligible for it?

The state is getting about 100,000 Coronavirus vaccine doses per week from the federal government. About one and a half million people in the state are now eligible. At that rate, it would take four months just to get everyone who's currently already eligible for their first dose. Hopefully, they'll ramp up vaccine production soon. In the meantime, there will be a lot of frustrated people who are eligible but are unable to get a shot.

If there aren't enough doses, how are the authorities determining who gets it first?

It's really just a matter of luck and privilege. Did your healthcare provider have appointments available when you tried to get one? Do you have internet and are you able to keep refreshing your browser till appointments open up? Do you have an established healthcare provider? It's essentially first come first served.

It sounds kind of chaotic, honestly. Why would they set up this way?

State officials keep using this ‘boarding an airplane’ analogy to talk about handing out vaccines. They've called Zone 1 and most of Zone 1 has boarded. There are a few stragglers, but now they're calling Zone 2 so that every time they have vaccine doses they have someone there in line.

Of course, it's really frustrating to be in Zone 2, and you're bumping elbows with everyone else and trying to fight for a place in line and even kind of find where the line is. The reason they're not honing this group more and saying "65 and older and also has a pre-existing condition" get to go in front of people who are "65 and older but have no pre-existing condition," or something like that, is that they're trying to balance two things — equity and speed. The more time you spend deciding who it would be fairest to give the vaccine to first, the more you slow down the logistics of handing out the vaccine.

It's actually convenient on the big scale to have tons of people who are eligible for the vaccine trying to get a place in line so that every single time you have a vaccine dose ready you have an eligible arm to put it in. That's the tightrope they're trying to walk. That's why it can be difficult and frustrating, though, for the public saying "But it's my turn" and "I can't even find the line."

What is the state saying to folks who are eligible for vaccines and are frustrated because they cannot get an appointment?

They keep pleading for patience, and things really should improve. Vaccine production is ramping up. New mass vaccination sites are opening up. The state is saying everyone will have access to a vaccine eventually. In the meantime, we're all going to have to keep masking up and avoiding gatherings

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.