Vaccination Update - HR County Health Dept.

Engage the Gorge

Published · January 19 at 8:48 PM ·

The Hood River County Board of Commissioners session is STILL going (started at 4pm) but we'll use their break time for an update on what the County Health Dept had to say. See pages 33-81 (https://bit.ly/3ixXmzl) of the agenda for all the details.

Trish Elliott and Dr. Van Tilburg spoke about vaccination to date, and plans. The County has held 4 mass vaccine clinics, following the state's phasing recommendations. All clinics have been done via drive-through. Recipients of the vaccine are staged for a 15-minute waiting period after vaccination to be sure there aren't allergic reactions. County Health is happy to get volunteers to help with traffic control and other non-medical stuff. Go to https://www.getreadygorge.com/volunteer and provide your details if interested.

The county is working 39 active cases of covid now; we've had 959 cases, 29 hospitalizations, and 21 deaths.

The county is ready to continue working through the vaccination program, though as the phases move into the general population (no timeline), vaccinations will be moving into physician offices. More details coming once the Health Dept knows more.

Kudos to HRC Health Department for their covid info website. You can find it here: hrccovid19.org It provides a widget to translate info into 3 other languages (Spanish, Russian, and Chinese). The Health Department is also seeking to translate Dr. VT's videos into Spanish and try to find ways to get broader distribution of that info.

Dr. Van Tilburg said that we expect that we'll be vaccinating about 50% of the county's population. That is because 25% of the county is under 16 years old (meaning they're not getting vaccinated); and about 25% are opting out. Commissioner Babitz later stated he feels the county should try for an 85% vaccination rate, but didn't provide suggestions on how to move the 25% opt-out group.

Note: The meeting ran late due to the lack of organization around interviews for committee positions. Future interviews may want to consider a time period for candidates to answer questions. The combination of lots of rambling and lots of technical issues made for a very long few hours.