Seattle Prepares Lumen Field To Vaccinate Thousands Daily

SEATTLE — The home of the Seattle Seahawks will take on a new challenge in the offseason, transforming into one of the most robust coronavirus vaccination sites in the Pacific Northwest, local leaders announced Monday.

Aiming to open for appointments before the end of March, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said the new site at the Lumen Field Events Center initially will be able to vaccinate about 5,000 people each week. As more doses become available this spring, the city plans to scale operations until the site can administer up to 21,000 every day, far outpacing any existing infrastructure in Washington.

The Lumen Field facility will run through a partnership between the city of Seattle, Swedish and First & Goal Inc.

"I want Seattle and, of course, King County to be the first area to have 70 percent of its adults be vaccinated so we can reach population immunity," Durkan said Monday. "Now that we are anticipating the city receiving more doses, we are ready to significantly expand our vaccination efforts."

Right now, the state's goal is to hit 45,000 vaccinations per day, and the latest official estimate sits just below 27,000. The four state-run mass vaccination sites have provided more than 70,000 vaccinations since late January, and more than 1.5 million doses have been administered across the state. If Lumen Field meets its potential, it will prove essential in keeping up with increasing demand as eligibility tiers expand.

"When we first started with the allocations, it was to get the frontline workers, those that are seeing COVID every day, vaccinated," said Dr. Guy Hudson, CEO at Swedish. "Now that we're tiering, and we're opening up to get the population vaccinated, sites like Lumen Field are critical. Because, when the supply opens up...and our ability to do 20,000 to 21,000 doses a day, we can really jump on this quickly to get the population vaccinated and safe."

The events center is the same one that briefly served as a field hospital in the early days of the pandemic — a cautionary measure that, fortunately, went largely unused. The neighboring football field currently hosts outdoor diners.

During a news conference Monday, Durkan did not specify a date for the vaccination site to open but said the goal would be mid-March. Appointments will be available for those across Western Washington and not limited to Seattle or King County residents.

"We obviously want to prioritize Seattle residents, but we know, to get to those critical numbers, that we will be taking more people at Lumen Field," Durkan said.

Seattle's announcement comes one year after King County became the first epicenter of coronavirus infections in the United States. King County officials confirmed the nation's first known death linked to COVID-19, and the earliest cluster of illnesses at a Kirkland nursing home, during a news conference on Feb. 29, 2020.

On Monday, King County Executive Dow Constantine took time to reflect on the anniversary and highlight the region's relative success in limiting illness and death, despite being among the first Americans to encounter the challenge.

Related: King County Reflects On A Year Of Fighting COVID-19

"As we mark what is a truly solemn anniversary, I want to leave you with this statistic: Of the nearly 100 most populated counties in the country, King County has achieved the second-lowest rate of COVID cases of any of those counties," Constantine said. "The achievement is only possible because community pulled together."

According to public health data, King County ranked 96th out of 97 major metropolitan areas in per capita case counts. Neighboring Pierce County ranked not far behind, landing at 92nd.

"We've lost more than 1,300 people in this county, but we've also saved thousands of lives," Constantine said. "When I say we, I mean all of us. All 2.3 million of us together doing the right thing. That achievement is a strong foundation, but now it's time for us to gird ourselves for the final stretch of this race, to keep doing the things that have saved lives, even as we work to get the vaccines out equitably and quickly."

Monday's announcement also included two additional sites, which will add vaccination clinics to community testing facilities in Rainier Beach and West Seattle. Initially, the new sites together will administer 2,000 vaccines each week, officials said, then scale up to meet that total daily as more doses become available. Right now, both community sites will operate by referral only and are not open for traditional appointments.

Ultimately, scaling up Washington's vaccination efforts will depend on a significant boost in shipments from the federal government. The latest estimates from the Department of Health show weekly deliveries surpassing 300,000 doses statewide by mid-March. On Monday, Durkan said she was confident supply chain issues would be usurped by a "marketing" challenge by the summer.

"Right now, we have a shortage of supply, but pretty soon we won't," Durkan said. "We have to get the structures in place, people have to know what's coming and know their turn will arrive because there's so much uncertainty right now. We will get enough vaccine, and it will shift — my guess [is] sometime this summer — to trying to convince those last people to get vaccinated."

The mayor's office said specifics on an opening date for the Lumen Field site and details on how to book an appointment will be released later this month.

Learn more about Seattle's vaccination announcement via the mayor's blog.