Health officials want more Flathead residents to sign up for vaccine

It’s been four months since vaccination efforts launched statewide and more than 250,000 Montanans are now fully immunized, including nearly 16,000 in Flathead County — a number local health officials hope to more than double in the coming months.

Flathead County came out of the gate strong in early December when COVID-19 vaccine distribution plans commenced. By the end of January, the Flathead City-County Health Department was staring down a waitlist of more than 8,000 individuals eager to be vaccinated.

Now, Health Officer Joe Russell said the waitlist is down to about 2,500 individuals and the call volume at the health department has become more manageable in recent weeks. The slight reprieve comes as he and other partners are pushing to fully vaccinate at least 40% of the local population, with 50% being their preferred end mark.

To meet that goal, Russell said more people need to sign up to be vaccinated, and in the coming weeks, the health department will be finding ways to market to the unvaccinated population. He said any vaccine-eligible individual should call to set up an appointment if they haven’t already signed up to receive their shots at a local pharmacy.

“What’s really telling is right now is we are basically scheduling vaccine appointments through the next few weeks and then we will mostly be through our waiting list. I would ask, if not challenge people to sign up right now to get their shots,” Russell said.

RUSSELL EMPHASIZED that administering the number of doses the health department and other partners have to date is no small feat.

State data shows more than 38,000 doses had been administered in Flathead County as of April 8. That number includes 15,520 individuals who are fully immunized, many of whom have received two doses each if they received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, while hundreds of others received the single-dose Johnson and Johnson.

And on Monday, Russell told the Kalispell City Council the health department was projected to administer more than 3,000 doses this week alone, which will include a mix of initial and second doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 200 doses of the Johnson and Johnson.

“We are coming along, but to be honest, I don’t see us getting much over 50% total, which really isn’t a bad target for Flathead County,” Russell said. “A significant portion of our population has been vaccinated. What is it going to take to bring all of them out? I’m not sure.”

Russell said there are multiple factors that could be keeping more folks from signing up to be vaccinated. Possible reasons include continued vaccine hesitancy among a population of Montanans that already leans vaccine hesitant, individuals from previous high-priority tiers holding off on being vaccinated and others in the new tier, which launched April 1, procrastinating on scheduling their vaccine appointments.

Those interested in being vaccinated may submit a form online at the Flathead City-County Health Department and wait until a staff member calls them to schedule an appointment, or individuals can watch sites such as vaccinefinder.org to find available doses in nearby pharmacies.

On Thursday afternoon, the website was showing that nine pharmacies within 25 miles of zip code 59937 had doses available. Pharmacies with doses include Walgreens in Kalispell and Whitefish, Smith’s pharmacies in Kalispell and Columbia Falls and Glacier Medical Associates.

NONE OF the larger counties in the state are close to having 50% of their populations fully vaccinated, though some are closer to meeting that mark than Flathead County, which currently has about 17% of its population completely immunized.

For example, state data shows that in Missoula County, nearly 23% of the local population is fully immunized and in Cascade County, roughly 18% have completed their vaccinations. Those percentages are based on the most recent Census Bureau population estimates available.

Statewide, Montana is still moving along at nearly 560,000 total doses administered, as of Thursday. And in the meantime, health officials are keeping a close eye on COVID-19 cases, which have been steadily climbing in various corners of the country.

Data shows Montana currently has more than 1,000 active COVID-19 cases. Since the start of the pandemic, the state has seen just over 105,000 total cases, more than 103,000 of which have recovered.

Nearly 1,500 Montanans have died from COVID-19-related complications since March 2020, including 91 in Flathead County, as of Thursday.

Local trends, however, show cases in the area remain stable and hospitalizations are low. Russell said Flathead County experienced an average of 11.7 new cases per day in March and new daily cases have been similar for April.

He said it is “too early to tell” if the county’s daily caseload will stay as low as it is and expressed some concern regarding new variants of the virus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said recently that the more aggressive variant believed to have originated in the United Kingdom, known as B117, is now very prevalent in the United States.

Russell said one Flathead County resident tested positive for the more aggressive variant two weeks ago. The results were lab-confirmed.