Providence Portland collaborates with DDHS to offer drive-up vaccinations on the breezeway
Posted June 2021
Staff Editor
Cars drove slowly through the breezeway between 1-6 p.m. on Thursday, June 10 as medical staff attended to them and administered vaccines to the occupants.
These were the scenes at David Douglas High School as a vaccine clinic was hosted on its premises. A collaboration between Providence Portland and the high school staff, the clinic administered first doses of the Pfizer vaccine to 249 people from in and around the community. Vaccines were available to everyone 12 and older, with a particular emphasis being placed on reaching those from disadvantaged and marginalized backgrounds.
“This clinic is focused on serving Latinx, Black, Indigenous, Immigrants, Refugees, and other people of color, and others who may have trouble accessing health care. However, no community members will be turned away,” Multnomah County stated on the clinic’s eventbrite page.
Steve Boyce, parent of graduating senior Jackson Boyce and freshman Alton Boyce, was among those who were vaccinated at the clinic on Thursday. Not having yet been vaccinated due to time constraints and other difficulties associated with receiving the vaccine, he opted to participate in the clinic at DDHS due to its convenient location and streamlined process, and indicated he was looking forward to the return to normal that this and other vaccine clinics might help enable in the future.
“They did an awesome job,” Steve Boyce said.
The clinic was overseen by Hong Nguyen, a pharmacist who’s been primarily stationed at the Oregon Convention Center, where around 500 thousand people have been vaccinated, since the vaccination process began. In addition to her work at the Oregon Convention Center, she’s also assisted three other clinics just like this one.
“We’re doing great at getting vaccinated, but we can all do a little better,” Nguyen said.
This comment seems to reflect the general sentiment in Oregon, and indeed across the country, regarding the effort being made to get everyone vaccinated. Although 67.4% of Oregon’s adults (and 54.1% of the state’s total population) have been at least partially vaccinated to date, we’re still just shy of the 70% figure at which Kate Brown has committed to lifting many of the state’s Covid-related restrictions.
Furthermore, despite doses of the vaccine having become more plentiful in recent weeks, the rate at which people are opting to receive the vaccine has diminished, a trend that has been observed across the nation. At one point in April Oregon was vaccinating nearly 50,000 people a day, however, this number has since dropped dramatically. On June 1, for example, only 4,885 Oregonians received their first dose of the vaccine. This reflects what’s been seen nationwide. In March and April there were a couple of days in which nearly 5 million people across America were vaccinated, but on Friday only 822,177 doses were administered.
State governments across the country have responded to this by offering a myriad of incentives intended to encourage people to receive their vaccines. Many states are now placing all recipients of the vaccine into statewide lotteries for generous cash prizes. Washington state has even announced a program entitled “Joints for Jabs”, in which cannabis retailers can provide free joints to those who’ve received the vaccine, while West Virginia is entering its vaccinated population into a lottery to win free guns. Oregon is one of the many states who’ve elected to unveil a vaccine lottery, placing all vaccinated residents into a lottery in which one winner will receive $1 million, one resident from each of Oregon’s 36 counties will win $10,000, and five students ages 12-17 will receive a $100,000 college savings scholarship. Furthermore, starting on Saturday, those who receive their first dose of the vaccine at either the Oregon Convention Center or the PDX Red Lot will receive a free $100 gift card, while supplies last.