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Several thousand doses of COVID-19 vaccine are expected to arrive in Snohomish County this week. Though that’s a “glimmer of hope,” we are far from done with the pandemic, Snohomish County leaders told a virtual press conference Tuesday morning.
The first phase of vaccination against COVID is set to begin shortly. It initially will focus on vaccinating workers who interact with COVID-19 patients in healthcare settings, emergency services workers who encounter patients with COVID-19, and staff and residents at long-term care facilities.
“If we can get that population vaccinated … with the healthcare workers would buy us sort of a buffer zone to protect our healthcare system and keep it operating, and then with the long-term care facilities when we’re done we should start to reap benefits in terms of reduced hospitalizations and deaths,” Snohomish Health District Health Officer Dr. Chris Spitters said.
Dr. Spitters also described how the vaccine works by introducing a “message in chemical form” (mRNA or messenger RNA) to the body so that our cells learn to recognize proteins that are part of the coronavirus and create a protective response. Then the body is ready to mount that response if it becomes infected with the coronavirus.
He spoke about vaccine safety and effectiveness, and noted that there are side effects that are fairly common based on the clinical trials, including headache, low-grade fever, fatigue, soreness and redness at the injection site, and generally feeling unwell for a day or two after getting vaccinated. The vaccine does not give people COVID – these side effects are a sign it is working, not that you are ill with the virus.
It could take between six and 12 months to vaccinate enough people to safely resume pre-pandemic social activities, but there is a light at the end of the journey. The Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management and Snohomish Health District are working hard on plans to support the healthcare system and stand up additional vaccination locations if necessary.
“There’s a huge need and everybody wants to get everybody vaccinated really, really quickly, but it’s going to be a process,” said Jason Biermann, the county’s emergency management director.
County Executive Dave Somers joined Spitters and Biermann in urging people to keep up the current health measures like masking and distancing, knowing that we have made an important step on the road out of the pandemic now that vaccines are becoming available.
“It’s a feeling of hope,” Somers said. “We do have a long way to go yet and we have to remember that. But we look back at the spring and we didn’t know what we were facing and kind of dreaded what was coming, and now there’s some hope.”
Watch the briefing: https://youtu.be/QSkkpJCHKuA
Or read the transcript: https://www.snohd.org/DocumentCenter/View/5991/transcript-dec-15-2020-briefing?bidId=
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