Chinook hosts another successful vaccination clinic

The Blaine County Health Department held its second successful first-dose vaccination clinic Friday in cooperation with One Health Sweet and Aaniiih Nakoda College Nursing Program, bringing the county to 2,000 first doses administered and 500 people fully vaccinated.

Blaine County Public Health Nurse Jana McPhereson-Hauer said this number includes doses administered by the Blaine County Health Department as well as those administered by Fort Belknap.

She said Blane County was, until that day, the leader in the state for vaccine distribution, and it remains one of the best counties in Montana for effective and speedy distribution.

"We're proud of that and we intend to keep it that way," she said.

McPherson-Hauer said a big part of this how well the county is doing is the effectiveness and speed of Fort Belknap's rollout and the fact that they got the vaccine earlier than expected.

She said Blaine County Health Department is hoping to get 200 vaccine doses every two weeks so it can continue clinics like Friday's on a regular basis.

She said 200 people were scheduled to be vaccinated at Friday's clinic, but the extreme weather conditions did put a dent in that number.

However, McPherson-Hauer said, the department has plans in place to make sure doses don't go to waste.

"We have a 'No Waste Wait List' that we can pull from when we have doses ready to go," she said.

She said clinics so far have been relatively confusion-free and the feedback from attendees has been positive.

If things keep going as they are, she said, there is a good chance that Blaine County could find itself in Phase 1C ahead of the state's scheduled transition in mid-March.

However, she said, she was unable to make a specific prediction as to when exactly Phase 1C would come just because of the fact that weekly allocations are not guaranteed to stay consistent.

Allocation and other sources of confusion

Despite the clinics proceeding smoothly and confusion on the part of attendees being minimal, McPherson-Hauer said, not knowing how much vaccine the state will allocate the county week to week has been a hurdle.

She said the unpredictability of the dose allocation is stressful because it makes planning for these clinics difficult.

"The scheduling, the mailing, the phone calls back and forth between people wanting vaccine or wanting to be put on the list, people trying to figure out when they can come, it is stressful," she said. "We can't start planning that stuff concretely until we know how much vaccine is going to be in the freezer. "

Fortunately for the department, she said, the process of requesting doses is being streamlined so that might be less of an issue in the near future.

McPherson-Hauer said immunization clinics are nothing new for public health, but the necessity of social distancing has made these ones much more difficult as well.

She also said, while the department definitely supports the inclusion of people 70 and older and those with underlying health conditions in Phase 1B, the change to include them by Gov. Greg Gianforte did cause significant confusion.

Thankfully, she said, Blaine County was able to immunize local educators who arrangements had been made for prior to their move to Phase 1C anyway.

Mask mandate

Another concern McPherson-Hauer said she has is the recent rescinding of the statewide mask mandate by Gianforte.

"Masking is part of why our cases are going down," she said. "Masking is part of why our schools have been able to stay in person in our county. I believe that when things are working, that's not the time to take them away."

She said there are still some protections in place, such as schools being required to follow guidelines from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and enacting local mandates, which she said is not off the table for Blaine County.

"If I feel that there are populations that aren't sufficiently protected ... we would consider that," she said.

McPherson-Hauer said while Blaine County has seen note-worthy downward trends in COVID-19 cases since the start of the new year, it is very important that people remain vigilant, which she said is part of the reason why the numbers are doing do well.

She said the vaccine is likely partially responsible for the downward trend, but the people of Blaine County taking mitigation efforts, including mask wearing, is also a huge part of why things are getting better, and that must continue if the situation is to continue improving.

"The virus isn't going anywhere, and with new variants being a threat on the horizon everywhere, it's something we can't be complacent about," she said. "We're happy about the downward trend, but we're committed to keeping the strategies that got us their in place so we can."

She specifically said she wanted people to keep wearing masks and listening to the CDC.

She said the lower the spread is, the less likely to be overwhelmed public health will be and the easier these clinics will become.

The importance of collaboration

McPherson-Hauer said it is critical to remember the fact that the clinics Blaine County has been holding are collaborative efforts and could not be done without the help of students and staff from the Aaniiih Nakoda College Nursing Program and One Health Sweet.

Dee Brockie, a nursing student at the college, said these clinics are a great way to get some practical training and help the community.

"It gives us a lot of good experience," Brockie said. "The people here are always nice and helpful, they make us feel very welcome."

She said almost everyone she's encountered is happy to just get the vaccine, but there are some who are afraid and have questions which she hopes to answer for them.

Blaine County Commissioner Frank DePriest, who took the place of a worker out on quarantine at the clinic, also praised the nursing program and its students for their critical contributions.

"We couldn't do this without the college, without the nursing program," he said.

DePriest said he got his first dose in Havre at a clinic run by the Montana Veterans Administration, which he said had a slightly rocky start, but quickly found its footing and ran very smoothly as well.

A pair of nurses from One Health Sweet, Tiffany Parson and Ashely Nordboe, said the clinics they've been part of have been run smoothly and they both encouraged anyone who has declined to be vaccinated to reconsider.

Attendees praised the events efficiency and many echoed the sentiments of Parson and Nordboe recommending that fellow county residents get the vaccine as soon as possible.