||| FROM BRENDAN COWAN for DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT |||


Some key information islanders should be aware of about the ongoing San Juan County Health & Community Services vaccination effort:

  • Current eligibility for vaccine is limited to individuals in Phase 1a and Phase 1b Tier 1. This includes healthcare workers, first responders, those over 65, and those over 50 and caring for a grandchild or elder. Full details are available here.
  • The next round of reservations for vaccine appointments in San Juan County will be made available on Friday, January 29 at 5 p.m.
  • IMPORTANT: San Juan County has received 200 doses of vaccine from the State for distribution next week to individuals receiving their first shot. Demand will far exceed supply. Thank you for your patience.
  • There is no waitlist. Many have thoughtfully suggested it as a good idea. Please keep in mind that:
    • Any waitlist would quickly exceed many thousands of individuals.
    • There is no fixed schedule for timing or amount of future vaccine deliveries from the State to the County. It is literally week to week.
    • Given that there is no way to know future appointment availability, there is no way to confirm schedule availability of those registered for a waitlist.
    • As time goes on, many individuals will be immunized elsewhere and no longer need the vaccine.

Without an effective sophisticated nation or statewide online system that ensures privacy and manages appointment scheduling and waitlists, a phone call would be required to process each person on the waitlist. At this time, in the midst of the rollout effort, and continued work on case investigation, contact tracing, and other public health response efforts, neither personnel nor infrastructure are available to manage a waitlist of that size.

Please be patient folks. Thank you!


 

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