||| FROM STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH |||

OLYMPIA – The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) continues to make progress with our COVID-19 vaccine distribution planning efforts.

Throughout the month of October our community engagement team connected with communities, workers, and business sectors that are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, and communities and sectors at higher risk for getting or spreading COVID-19. We conducted over 90 interviews and focus groups with 402 people, and received 18,000 survey responses in multiple languages.

Provider enrollment

On November 2, we opened enrollment for the COVID-19 Vaccination Program. We collaborated with the Washington State Hospital Association and health care coalitions to identify and invite facilities to enroll for the first phase of vaccine administration.

We are taking a phased approach to enrollment, focusing first on hospitals and health care systems. We will branch out to additional sites in the following weeks. We also opened enrollment to local health departments that are planning to order, store, or administer vaccine.

State and national plans

On October 29, the CDC released an updated version of their COVID-19 Vaccination Program Interim Playbook for Jurisdiction Operations. The next update to our Interim COVID-19 vaccination plan will include changes informed by the CDC’s new playbook along with other sources of feedback. We will post the revised version of the plan on our COVID-19 Vaccine page once complete.