SEQUIM, Wash. — A quarter of Clallam County’s population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19. That’s double the state’s percentage.
"I think we learned very early on that we had to take care of ourselves out here,” Clallam County’s Health Officer, Dr. Allison Berry told KING 5.
About 21% of Washingtonians have had at least one dose of the vaccine, and 12% are fully vaccinated. Clallam County has 34% with at least one dose and 24.43% of its population is fully vaccinated.
For perspective, King County has nearly 22% with at least one dose — and only 12% are fully vaccinated. Clallam County's full vaccination rate is also outpacing similarly-sized counties, such as Grays Harbor (14%), Chelan (20.7%) and Lewis (9.2%).
And no, Clallam County is not getting more doses than other counites, Berry said.
“What we’re doing is we actually moving all of our vaccine. So, whenever vaccine comes to our community, we move it within a week and that’s been different than what we’ve seen with a lot of places because we can — through that coordination — not have vaccine on shelves,” she said.
But there’s also a list of other things they’ve done.
"We decided really early on to basically 'nationalize' our vaccine. So, all vaccine that comes into Clallam county belongs to the people of Clallam and we distribute it across the entire county,” she said.
Clallam County "nationalized" their supply, meaning doses are moved from place to place depending what site needs it most.
They built mass vaccination infrastructure early on, and what might be the biggest factor, they partnered with the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe and other agencies, such as the local hospitals and fire districts.
"We've always felt like it was our responsibility to step up,” said Brent Simcosky, Director of Health Services, Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe. “The Jamestown Tribe has a history of being very collaborative in this county. We’ve shared vaccines with people when they’re short, and they’ve shared some with us if we were short.”
The tribe is ahead of the game in Washington state.
“As a sovereign government we’re able to pick and choose our own priorities and for us the priority is getting our community. We say that we want our community, which is our vaccination bubble, we don’t have (a) reservation, we don’t have all of our tribal citizens living in one area. They are spread out througout the county and so we want to get the county as quickly to immunity as possible,” he said. "I think we've been able to go a little bit faster, like we're doing 50 and above now and their spouses."
The tribe is vaccinating people 50 and older and all the spouses of people who qualify,
Those are people like Tracy Baker and Jeff Wester.
They don't meet the state's vaccine eligibility just yet, but they meet the tribe's.
"They have done an amazing job. Coming through here today, I am very impressed,” Baker said.
"Jamestown overall has done so many great things for Clallam County and I really want to thank them,” Wester said.