SPOKANE, Wash. – The Washington Secretary of Health Dr. Umair A Shah visited eastern Washington on Monday and Tuesday.
“It is very important for me to be Secretary of Health for the entire state,” Dr. Shah said. “That’s why very early on in this tenure I wanted to come out here personally, physically in-person to come and visit and talk to people on the ground.”
During his visit to Spokane on Monday and Tuesday, he spent time at the Spokane Regional Health District. On social media, Dr. Shah was pictured with SRHD Administrative Officer Amelia Clark and Dr. Frank Velazquez.
Dr. Shah was given a tour of the mass vaccination site at the Spokane Arena. He spoke with Washington National Guard members and thanked them for their service.
Dr. Shah said the biggest challenge the state currently faces is the vaccine supply chain. He said that last week the state received 358,000 first-dose requests but only received a little more than 100,000 first doses.
“We have the capacity to be able to do more than we can here or else where across the state we just don’t have enough vaccines,” Dr. Shah said.
In the next week, the federal government is expected to start giving a preview to states on what dose allocations will look like.
He asked guard members if they need anything to help make operations run smoothly, other than more doses. The guard members had no immediate concerns.
Dr. Shah also spoke about the state’s approach to reopening.
He said they went with a regional approach for two reasons. The first reason is due to people comminuting from one jurisdiction to another. The second is the state takes a regional approach to healthcare.
“The concern that we had was that we wanted to make sure our healthcare system did not surge,” Dr. Shah said. “It follows the EMS regions. The one thing I’ve found with the pandemic is every decision you make, every plan you have, some people think you didn’t go far enough. Other people think you went too far. And it’s about always trying to find a balance.”
Dr. Shah’s next stop in eastern Washington is the Tri-Cities.
