What's behind the slow rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine?

What's behind the slow rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine?

Getting their first dose.

Governor kate brown will hold a press conference tomorrow to discuss oregon's ongoing response to covid-19...and the painfully slow administering of vaccines.

As we said, in lane county -- only fifty- five hundred first doses of the vaccine have been given out.

And most of those didn't come from lane county public health.

Kezi 9 news reporter jillian smukler joins us live to explain.

Matt -- renee --- lane county public health has recieved a mere 12 hundred doses of the vaccine so far.

That's for a population of 382 thousand.

Some vaccines have been distributed to other places like pharmacies and hospitals without going through lane county public health*first.

Officials are blaming this disconnect --- along with the lack of communication from the federal government --- for the snails pace of shots.

Doctor patrick luedtke says -- public health was originally under the impression that they'd be the ones distributing the vaccine.

So when they found out from the government that they were contracting directly with pharmacies like cvs and walgreens -- they needed to re- adjust.

To make matters worse -- luedtke says the county recieved far fewer doses than originally promised.

He tells me lane county public health gets a list every week*outlining how many doses the county will get.

For example -- this week he tells me the county recieved 400 doses -- that's it.

As for how many people in lane county are fully vaccinated -- only three.

The federal government made the decision im not going to fault it but its not our decision to make that they are going to have a direct contract with the pharmacies okay that are going to vaccinate long term care facilities, public health never got those vaccines, never touched them never had anything to do with them.

And they made the decision to work with hospitals public health never got those vaccines never touched them had nothing to do with them so we didn't get our first doses in public health until a week ago."

As a publc health authority he says people are looking to them to be the ones responsible for making sure everyone gets vaccinated and that its fair and equitable.

But he tells me its frustrating given they don't have the power to do that -- given the vaccine has gone through the big pharmacy chain and hospitals.

So -- to sum it all up -- doctor luedtke says -- we don't have the vaccines that we need.

The u-s government promised that oregon would have several hundred thousand doses of the vaccine -- and clearly the state got significantly less.

Oregon recieved only one hundred and ninety thousand -- across the state.

Reporting live in eugene jillian smukler kezi 9