A COVID-19 particle is pictured in this image provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC/CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

Baker County had the biggest day of its COVID-19 vaccination effort on Friday, March 12.

A total of 791 doses were administered that day, according to the Oregon Health Authority (OHA). Most of those doses — 717 — were given by the Baker County Health Department either during a clinic at Baker High School or, later in the day, at the Health Department.

Baker County’s previous one-day record for giving vaccines was 746 doses on Feb. 26. The Health Department also had a major clinic that day at the high school.

As of Monday, March 15, Baker County’s vaccination rate, per 10,000 residents, ranked second among Oregon’s 36 counties.

Baker County has had 1,977 residents fully vaccinated — 11.7% of the county’s 16,800 residents — and another 2,468 people — 14.7% — have received the first of two doses.

(The Johnson & Johnson vaccine requires only one dose. As of Monday, 169 doses of that vaccine had been given in Baker County.)

Baker County’s vaccination rate of 2,643 people per 10,000 residents ranks second among Oregon’s 36 counties, behind only Wheeler County.

The state’s least-populated county, with about 1,440 residents, Wheeler County’s vaccination rate is 3,303 per 10,000.

Nancy Staten, director of the Baker County Health Department, said Baker County’s vaccination rate is a testament not only to the Health Department, its staff and the volunteers who have worked at the large clinics, but also to the county’s partners that also are administering vaccines.

Those include Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Baker City, St. Luke’s Clinic-Eastern Oregon Medical Associates, Pine Eagle Clinic in Halfway, and the pharmacies at Safeway, Albertsons, Bi-Mart and Rite Aid stores in Baker City.

“It’s a community-wide effort,” Staten said.

Because most of the doses that have administered in Baker County are either the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which require two doses, the biweekly clinics that the Health Department has put on at the high school — on Feb. 12 and 26 and March 12 — have been a mixture of people receiving either the first or the second dose, Staten said.

On March 12, about 300 of the 717 doses the Health Department administered were second doses that fully vaccinated the people who received them, she said.

Staten said the Health Department will continue to offer inoculations to county residents who are 65 and older, based on Oregon’s eligibility guidelines.

However, with 63.3% of those residents having received either their first dose or both doses, Staten said the number of people in that age range who are on the county’s waiting list has shrunk considerably in the past couple weeks.

Staten urges all residents, even those who are younger than 65, to go to the county’s website — www.bakercountycovid19.com/ — to have their name added to a waiting list.

She said the county also shares that information on occasion with other vaccination partners when they have available doses.

Staten said some residents are also making appointments to be inoculated at pharmacies, and when county employees call them to set up an appointment, they don’t need to make one because they’ve already received a vaccine at a pharmacy.

Staten said state officials have told her that the county’s weekly allotment of doses could increase starting the week of March 29. She said that could lead to a situation where the county has enough doses to start offering vaccinations to people between 45 and 54 who have underlying medical conditions.

So far more than 1,200 county residents younger than 60 have received one or both doses. Many of those people either work for a school district, a childcare provider or a police or fire agency, all groups that have been eligible for vaccines, regardless of age.

Staten said the county has also inoculated people from a variety of age groups following the large clinics at BHS after all the people with appointments have received a vaccine. That’s done to avoid wasting a single dose, she said — once a vial of 10 doses is punctured, all the doses have to be used within six hours.

COVID-19 vaccinations in Baker County, by age group, gender

As of Monday, March 15, a total of 4,445 Baker County residents — 26.5% of the population — had received either a first dose, or both doses, of a COVID-19 vaccine. The breakdown by age group and gender:

 

• 80 and older: 

773 people

• 75  to 79: 

517 people

• 70  to 74: 

821 people

• 65  to 69: 

703 people

• 60  to 64: 

365 people 

• 50  to 59: 

462 people

• 40  to 49: 

352 peopl

• 30  to 39: 

286 people 

• 20  to 29: 

140 people

• 19 and younger: 

26 people

 

• FEMALE 

2,478 people

 

• MALE 

1,961 people