Phase 1a-eligible workers were vaccinated.

Peninsula Community Health Services partnered with Kitsap Public Health District and City of Bremerton to provide COVID-19 vaccinations event to 680 healthcare workers during a six-hour stretch on Saturday, Jan. 2 in Bremerton. It was Kitsap County’s largest COVID vaccination event to date.

More than three-dozen PCHS staff and volunteers administered doses of the Moderna vaccine to individuals eligible for Phase 1a of vaccination. The vaccine clinic followed a multi-day effort coordinated by the Health District to contact and register Phase 1a-eligible workers in the community. 

When PCHS was informed it would receive a large allotment of the Moderna vaccine, PCHS Pharmacy Director Patricia Lambro, said – “the fastest way to get vaccine over the holidays is with a mass immunization event – the kind of thing we trained for in school, but never thought we’d actually ever do in our careers! Within three days, we had reached capacity.”

Health District Health Officer Dr. Gib Morrow added that the event exemplified the commitment and cooperation needed to make COVID-19 vaccine available to the majority of Kitsap residents in 2021. 

“We appreciate Peninsula Community Health Services and every healthcare organization in our county that has stepped up to take on this complex challenge, despite limited resources,” Dr. Morrow said. “Our entire healthcare community will need to work together over the coming weeks and months to make COVID-19 vaccine widely available to Kitsap residents.”

PCHS is one of several healthcare organizations in Kitsap County that has enrolled with the state Department of Health to receive and administer vaccine to priority groups in accordance with Washington’s COVID-19 vaccination plan. Kitsap Public Health is urging all Kitsap healthcare providers to enroll as soon as possible at covidvaccinewa.org

Story by Kitsap Public Health District