Spokane County now has three vaccines in their toolbox to help end the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Johnson and Johnson vaccine arrived in Spokane County.
Spokane Regional Health District announced Wednesday that CHAS Health received their first shipment of 500 doses. CHAS says that the plan is to use these doses for those who are hard to get scheduled for an appointment for their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, like those who are homeless, those living in rural areas, etc.
Along with one more vaccine becoming available, Dr. Frank Velazquez added that many providers have seen an increase of vaccine doses over the last couple weeks. “Demand has exceeded supply, we have seen supply increase over the last couple weeks and hopefully it continues in that direction,” said Dr. Velazquez. When Dr. Velazquez was asked if he thinks everyone could be vaccinated by May, he said its dependent on how many doses they receive, but if they do continue to receive more, they are ready. “We are happy to scale up, we are happy to step it up if there is more vaccine available,” he said. According to the Department of Health, Washington State has administered just over 2 million doses, which is a little over 45,000 doses a day. In Spokane county, the total number of vaccines administered is just over 146,000, with 52,000 of those people being fully vaccinated.
