Hood River County will be moving to the Moderate Risk Level on Friday February 26! Local cases have dropped allowing us to open businesses to a greater level. This is great news for local businesses but please remember not to let down your guard. It is more important than ever to continue wearing masks, physical distancing, avoiding gatherings, and staying home if you are sick. Continuing to follow current guidance from the Governor’s Office will help us keep our businesses and Schools open.
Adults 65 and over will become eligible to get a vaccine over the following weeks. However, that does not mean we will have the necessary doses or staff available to distribute to all that are eligible. We have approximately 5000 seniors 65 and up in our county. In the coming weeks, we know there will be more seniors who want to get vaccinated than there will be vaccines available for them. Please do not double schedule or attempt to schedule if you don’t meet the state criteria. If you are age 65 or over you should be contacted to schedule your COVID-19 vaccination by your primary care provider. Columbia Gorge Family Medicine clients please see their website: cgfm.com. If you do not have a primary care provider, One Community Health will be helping us to get you vaccinated. The health department will be coordinating vaccination for those who do not have a primary care provider once we have vaccine available. Please do not call the Health Department or your primary care provider’s as phone lines are overloaded. All information can be found on the website: hrccovid19.org or on our information lines; English 541-399-8022, Spanish 541-399-8023. Also, there is now a pharmacy program partnership with Oregon Health Authority and The Federal Government available if you do not have a doctor locally or your doctor is not administering vaccinations. More information is available online. Shipments reportedly arrived on Feb. 10 at 127 retail pharmacies in Oregon. This program offers locations in 27 of Oregon’s 36 counties. These locations include 103 Safeway/Albertson’s locations, 13 Costco Locations, and 11 Health Mart (independent affiliate) pharmacies. The retail partners in this program will screen for the appropriate age eligibility per Oregon’s vaccine plan. Eligible Oregonians can make appointments at these retailers’ websites: Costco: costco.com/covid-vaccine.html Safeway/Albertsons: safeway.com/pharmacy/covid- 19.html. Each site is currently scheduled to receive 100 doses per week and only Safeway has received vaccine locally at this time.
If you are in need of your second dose it can be administered as close to the recommended interval as possible. However, if it is not feasible to adhere to the recommended interval and a delay in vaccination is unavoidable, the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines may be administered up to 6 weeks (42 days) after the first dose.
We will all have to be patient as we continue to slowly receive vaccine for distribution in the upcoming weeks. We will do our best to be sure everyone in Hood River County who is eligible and wanting a vaccination receives one as soon as possible.
For information about administration of the COVID-19 vaccine in Hood River County:
Visit: www.HRCCovid19.org https://www.facebook.com/HRCPublicHealthOfficer
Email: [email protected]
Call: 541-399-8022 (English) or 541-399-8023 (Español)