Oregon still in Phase 1A of vaccinations as many wait for first dose, while others start receiving second dose

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    PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) — According to the Oregon Health Authority, the state is still near the beginning of Phase 1A of vaccinations, which it’s been in for about three weeks since Oregon first received vaccines.

While many people are still waiting for that first dose of vaccine, some are now getting their second dose.

“I’m excited, I’m really excited to get it,” Arinea Salas said.

She’ll be getting her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine Saturday, and as much as she’s looking forward to it, she said it’s hard to think about that when she’s still dealing with dying patients in the ICU every day.

“It’s just hard to see people who had regular lives, and now they’re intubated and sedated, they have a tube down their throat, they’re struggling to live,” she said. “I’m really tired of calling families, giving them bad news, it’s just really hard.”

She’s an internal medicine resident physician at OHSU, which is starting its second round of vaccinations this week.

Legacy already started administering second doses.

So far, the Oregon Health Authority said only nine Oregonians had been fully vaccinated.

The state is still at the beginning of Phase 1A of its vaccination plan.

“We’ve divided it into four different groups of healthcare providers. The first group is hospital workers, and we’re still really trying to get all of the hospital workers vaccinated,” OHA Senior Health Advisor Dr. Paul Cieslak said.

“It’s really disheartening to see that more people aren’t getting vaccinated, you know, this is America. We put a man on the moon. We can do great things quickly if we really wanted to,” Salas said about the slow rollout of vaccines.

As far as where things go from here, Oregon’s Vaccine Advisory Committee meets for the first time this week.

Their job is to advise OHA on how to sequence vaccinations in the coming phases, making sure those most impacted by COVID-19 are included.

As of now, according to the OHA draft vaccination plan, phase 1B includes essential workers like teachers.

As far as timeline, Dr. Cieslak said, “It’s dependent on our allocations of vaccine and on how fast we can get it into arms. Obviously, I think we’re maybe looking into late February, early March until we’re really into the 1B group.”

The initial vaccine advisory committee meeting is Tuesday night. Then there’s one Thursday.

The schedule right now shows those meetings will happen every week until plans are completed in February.

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