Oregon May Have Enough Vaccines for All Willing Adults by April 21

By then, the state expects to have enough doses on hand for 70% of adult Oregonians to receive their first dose.

Multnomah County health workers vaccinated. (Motoya Nakamura / Multnomah County)
By Rachel Monahan

For those still waiting for a COVID-19 vaccine, the last two weeks have brought good news.

First, on Feb. 26, Gov. Kate Brown announced that every Oregonian would be eligible for a vaccine by July 1. Then, on March 2, President Joe Biden announced he expected to have enough doses for every adult in the country by the end of May.

But there's another date that the Oregon Health Authority has been more quiet about: April 21.

That's when the state expects to have enough doses on hand for 70% of adult Oregonians to receive their first dose. (The projection assumes current projections for supply hold steady.)

With a significant portion of Oregonians hesitant or outright opposed to receiving a vaccination, that may mean that everyone interested should be able to find a dose around that date.

"Based on current federal forecasts of vaccines received, we should actually be at a place at April 21, where we would have received enough vaccines to hit 70% of the adult population and as the president said yesterday by the end of May 100% of the adult population," Oregon Health Authority director Patrick Allen told the Oregon House Subcommittee on COVID-19 on March 3. "We think this is a reasonably reliable forecast of where we should be."

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