PENDLETON — Umatilla County residents can expect further delays in receiving the COVID-19 vaccine as health officials announced on Friday, Jan. 15, that the county will not be receiving any doses next week and will be canceling drive-thru clinics originally scheduled on Jan. 21 and Jan. 22, according to a press release from the health department.

The release comes as Gov. Kate Brown announced earlier in the day that the state will not be receiving the next shipment of doses to accelerate and expand immunizations to teachers and Oregonians older than 65 on Jan. 23, despite promises made by the Trump administration earlier this week that states would be receiving more.

The federal government’s failures forced Brown to shift gears, as she later announced that the state would continue their plans to immunize teachers on Jan. 25 but postponed eligibility for Oregonians 80 and older to Feb. 8, with successive phases for those 75, 70 and 60 to follow thereafter.

“It is deeply disappointing that vaccinations for our Phase 1a residents, including those in Long Term Care Facilities will continue to be delayed,” Joe Fiumara, the county’s health director, said in the press release. “We are committed to continuing planning efforts to ensure that our community is ready to quickly administer any amount of vaccine that arrives in coming weeks.”

The press release from the health department said that county residents should expect further delays and an extended timeline due to the statewide shifts.

Umatilla County officials have been anticipating and planning for weeks to hold multiple vaccine events to immunize hundreds of residents, especially as eligibility was scheduled to expand to thousands more residents next week. But earlier this week, as the county’s allocated supply dwindled and state officials grew mum over the details of further shipments, concern grew in the county over what the supply would look like, when and how it would arrive.

The press release said this is the second consecutive week that the health department has not received sufficient COVID-19 vaccine to hold mass vaccination events, like the drive-thru events that happened last week, which brought the vaccine to nearly 600 people.

The county has so far inoculated nearly 2,000 residents with the first dose of the vaccine, but only four residents have been fully immunized as of Thursday, Jan. 14, according to data from the health department. Fiumara said that the health department has the resources to vaccinate over 2,000 people each week, if provided the supply.