Officials across Washington state are trying to vaccinate people for COVID-19 more quickly, and some of those plans begin this week.
Pierce County officials will run two free, drive-through vaccination events.
One event, at Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood, will be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Jan. 26.
The other, at Washington State Fair Events Center, will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Jan. 28.
Pierce County residents can get vaccinated in their vehicles and schedule an appointment for a second dose at no cost. The vaccines require two shots, given about three weeks apart, in order to be effective.
However, people who arrive at the drive-through events must be eligible to receive the vaccine under the state's phased rollout plan. Currently, that's people in Phase 1A and Phase 1B Tier 1, which primarily include health-care workers and older people.
Pierce County officials said they expect to hold more "pop-up" vaccination events, including one in Gig Harbor, as more vaccine doses become available.
Meanwhile, state officials said they hope to open four mass vaccination clinics this week, in Spokane, Wenatchee, the Tri-Cities and Ridgefield.
Those sites, plus mass vaccination efforts in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, could vaccinate 100,000 per week, state officials said. However, that depends on enough vaccine doses arriving in the state, and officials said supplies haven't been adequate so far.
King County officials said they plan to open two mass vaccine sites, likely in South King County, and launch mobile teams that will administer vaccines.
"We do have this multi-pronged strategy that we're waiting to stand up, that is based on having doses available," Dr. Jeff Duchin, Seattle and King County's public health officer, said in a news conference Friday.
Duchin said vaccine supplies haven't kept up with the county's plans to grow its vaccine distribution network. "It's a very terrible planning situation, very challenging for us and for all the vaccinators at the moment," he said.
