More than four months after the first COVID-19 vaccine shipments arrived, Oregon will open vaccinations to anyone and everyone 16 years and older.
The state will be one of the last in the country to meet President Biden’s deadline just in time by joining five others who are eligible for Alaska by April 19th. Alaska became the first in the country to do so on March 9th. California did this last Thursday.
In Oregon, more than 3.4 million of the state’s 4.2 million residents will be eligible. This is about 82% of the population.
And that leaves nearly 800,000 children aged 15 and younger who are not yet able to be vaccinated. Some experts predict that children 12 to 15 may get the OK for shots this summer; ages 5 to 11 by the end of the year; and infants six months and older, toddlers and toddlers by early 2022.
Although public health officials believe that vaccination reluctance appears to be playing a role in some rural parts of the state – with the rate of vaccinations declining – demand is still strong in the Portland area.
Available appointments at Oregon Health & Science University’s driveways at Portland International Airport and Hillsboro Stadium last week typically elapsed between 30 and 40 minutes. Appointments at many pharmacies were also quickly snapped up. But it was noticeably easier to make an appointment last week than the previous week, that’s when the previous wave of Oregons came into consideration, including people 16 years and older with underlying conditions and front workers.
You can make an appointment if you live in counties and environs in the Portland area, including Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas and Columbia:
- Go online “most weekdays” at 09:00 at www.ohsu.edu/covidvaccines, when OHSU releases thousands of appointments for the schedule. Available locations include the drive-by sites at Portland International Airport and Hillsboro Stadium, but occasionally a few smaller OHSU inpatient clinics. Last week, about 17,000 appointments were released. This week, OHSU expects it to be around 22,000. For people without internet access, OHSU can make telephone appointments at 833-647-8222.
- Register at getvaccinated.oregon.gov, which will take you to a lottery. As of Friday, more than 480,000 residents of the Portland area have signed up. Names are signed every Monday for appointments at the Oregon Convention Center. Last week, the vaccination site sent electronic invitations to 40,000 residents to book appointments, but only 13,000 planned Friday morning. This may be an indication that many people in the lottery have already booked appointments or received shots elsewhere.
- If you register with getvaccinated.oregon.gov, you can also receive emails about information clinics in the area that have appointments available to book.
- Go to vaccinefinder.org or vaccinespotter.org, which provides links to pharmacies with available appointments. Or visit covidvaccine.oregon.gov and click “Vaccinations by Country” to see if you can book appointments in other parts of the state outside your country.
If you have any questions, call 211 for assistance.
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– Aimee Green; [email protected]; @o_aimee