Washington Reaches Goal Of 45,000 Vaccines Administered Per Day

OLYMPIA, WA — On Jan. 18, Gov. Jay Inslee publicly announced that the state had set a new goal to triple the number of daily COVID-19 vaccinations performed in Washington from around 14,000 to 45,000.

"We are removing as many impediments as possible to Washingtonians getting vaccinated, we are going to deliver every dose that comes into our state," Inslee said. "We will still be dependent on the federal government for doses, but we are doing everything we can once it gets here."

Now, the state says it has met that goal for the first time.

In the week leading up to March 3, health care providers across Washington administered an average of 45,221 COVID-19 vaccine doses every day, according to the latest available data from the Washington State Department of Health.

According to that data, 1,865,640 vaccine doses have been administered across the state, out of the 2,227,970 doses that have been delivered to Washington providers. That means around 77.28% of the state's vaccines have been used, which is also a significant improvement. Early in the vaccine rollout, there were long stretches where that number was well below 50%.

From here, the number of daily vaccinations is only expected to keep getting higher: this week the state was allocated 309,770 vaccine doses, but that will increase to 320,300 next week and 327,320 doses the week after. The DOH says providers have the capacity to administer those doses, and in fact had requested about 100,000 more to keep up with demand.

The department of health does not have data on allocations past the end of the month, but there is one other sign that Washington will be getting even more vaccines in the month ahead: the arrival of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The state received 60,900 doses of the J&J vaccine this week, but will not be receiving any more doses for the next three weeks. After that, however, the J&J vaccine will be back in the mix help boost the state's vaccine response.