Thousands of people in Fairfax County are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, but with many of them struggling to get appointments, the Fairfax County Federation of Citizens Associations has stepped up to help.
The federation has started a “Neighborhood COVID-19 Navigators” project to encourage local homeowners’, civic, and community organizations to assist people who are facing challenges in getting a vaccine appointment, from technological or transportation issues to general confusion about the process.
“The Federation believes that its member citizens associations are in a good position to address this gap by providing neighbor-to-neighbor help to those who may be struggling to get vaccination appointments because of technical challenges or because they have limited transportation to vaccination sites,” Fairfax County Federation President William Barfield said in a letter to members.
The Fairfax County Health Department has been working with nonprofits, faith-based groups, and other community organizations since January on a word-of-mouth outreach program to share information about the COVID-19 vaccine campaign.
The county is providing options for people who need transportation to get to a vaccine appointment, including free rides through taxi companies and subsidized taxi vouchers for older adults, people with limited incomes, and individuals with disabilities. Several community organizations, such as the local Shepherd’s Centers, are also offering volunteer transportation to older adults.
However, the county government does not have a systematic way of identifying who needs help without the individual coming forward first, which might not happen if they don’t know where to turn for information.
Fairfax County Federation human services committee co-chair Doug Birnie realized that neighborhood groups could provide that connection between residents and the county. He brought up the idea to his committee co-chair, Mike Perel, and the Neighborhood COVID-19 Navigators initiative was born.
“Neighbors can connect neighbors with the primary County Health Department numbers on our flyer and, where necessary, offer a helping hand in negotiating the vaccination process including offering rides and personal assistance in navigating vaccination sites,” Birnie, Perel, and Barfield said in a joint statement to Tysons Reporter. “A trusted helping hand in difficult times is a valued and effective means for achieving successful outcomes.”
Along with the letter, Barfield sent out a flier with several points of contact at the Fairfax County Health Department so residents can pass along that information to neighbors who are struggling to register for a vaccine.
The flier directs people with questions or in need of transportation assistance to call the Fairfax County Health Department call center at 703-324-7404. They can also email [email protected].
County residents who are eligible to get vaccinated can register for an appointment through the call center or the health department’s website.
Image via Fairfax County Federation of Citizens Associations
More than 115,000 Fairfax County residents have now been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the latest state data indicates.
The Virginia Department of Health reported today (Monday) that Fairfax County has administered a total of 312,706 vaccine doses to 203,015 people, 115,506 of whom have gotten both required doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The county surpassed the milestone of 100,000 completed vaccinations over the past week, as officials anticipate the availability of supply to continue increasing. The Fairfax County Health Department received 31,590 doses of vaccine from the state between March 8 and 14, a sizable uptick from the 19,220 doses that came in the week before.
Even as vaccinations pick up, county leaders and health officials urge the community to remain vigilant and keep adhering to COVID-19 health protocols.
With another 115 cases reported today, the Fairfax Health District has recorded 69,628 COVID-19 cases, 3,653 hospitalizations, and 1,057 deaths. The seven-day average currently sits at 134 new cases per day, though the rate has been trending steadily downward since peaking at nearly 700 cases on Jan. 17.
“The path forward isn’t simple,” Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said in his most recent newsletter on Friday (March 12). “We still see about 140 new cases a day and I urge you to continue to wear a mask, social distance, and wash your hands. What’s next won’t be easy, but there is a way forward.”
The hope promised by an accelerating vaccination effort was dampened this weekend as Virginia’s COVID-19 death toll exceeded 10,000 fatalities on Sunday (March 14), which was also the one-year anniversary of the state’s first recorded death caused by the novel coronavirus.
To mark the occasion, Gov. Ralph Northam ordered all Virginia flags to be lowered to half-mast from sunrise to sunset yesterday. As a tribute to the pandemic’s victims, the governor’s mansion in Richmond is being illuminated in amber light until March 21 — the day Fairfax County reported its first COVID-19 death.
At the same time, Northam has set ambitious targets for the Commonwealth’s vaccination campaign, pledging to not only meet President Joe Biden’s goal of opening eligibility to all adults by May 1, but also, “to celebrate independence from this virus on July 4.”
“We can do this in Virginia if we all continue following public health guidelines and get vaccinated,” Northam said. “This is how we will come together, face down this dark period, and emerge stronger than ever.”
Images via CDC on Unsplash, Virginia Department of Health
(Updated at 11:05 a.m. on 3/12/2021) Fairfax County has received 3,800 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine so far, but the county health department opted to send that initial allotment to local Inova hospitals, the Virginia Department of Health says.
The county’s allotment comes from the Commonwealth’s current supply of 69,000 doses that it received from the federal government last week.
Fairfax County Health Department spokesperson Jeremy Lasich confirmed to Reston Now, Tysons Reporter’s affiliate site, that the county sent its J&J vaccine doses to Inova, because the county currently only has the capacity to give out a certain amount of doses. As supply picks up, the county will rely more on partners like Inova.
The hospital system is planning to use this supply for a vaccination clinic for residents 75 and over, Lasich says.
Nearly 110,00 Fairfax County residents remain on the waitlist for a vaccine appointment, though the pace of vaccinations has been picking up, according to the county’s dashboard, which indicates that residents who registered on Jan. 22 are now able to make appointments.
The county did say they expect to receive a fresh supply of J&J vaccine doses by the end of March. It’s unknown at this time exactly how many doses, Lasich says.
Additionally, a number of pharmacies in Fairfax County received the J&J vaccine through the federal partnership program, the Virginia Department of Health confirmed to Reston Now.
The health department for nearby Arlington County opted to allocate 1,500 doses of the J&J vaccine for a mass vaccination event this past weekend.
D.C. got doses of the J&J vaccine that were used at high-capacity vaccination sites last week. The city is also asking residents which of the three available vaccines they’d prefer when they pre-register. A city official said on Twitter that it’s for data collection to understand demand.
However, Fairfax County is not asking this question or providing a vaccine option because it is “primarily using Pfizer for first-dose appointments right now.”
Lasich says this is a change from earlier in the year, when the county health department was primarily using Moderna. Exactly which vaccine is used depends on the amount of doses received, he notes.
There’s evidence that some prefer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which requires only one-shot, rather than the two shots needed for both Pfizer’s and Moderna. This could potentially simplify and quicken the pace of vaccination.
In addition to lowering the commitment from patients, the J&J vaccine is easier to store, and it appears that recipients have been less prone to severe side effects.
One potential drawback to the J&J vaccine is that trials have shown that it is less effective than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines at preventing illness, though it still has an 85% efficacy against severe forms of COVID-19 and 100% efficacy against hospitalization and death from COVID-19.
Even though that means it still offers strong protection, health officials are putting a lot of effort in convincing people that the J&J vaccine is not the “inferior” vaccine.
VDH says it expects the J&J vaccine to make up close to 20% of the state’s supply in April, increasing to about 30% in May.
In Fairfax County, conversations are ongoing about giving registrants the option to choose which vaccine they will receive, but it will all depend on supply availability.
“The best vaccine is the one available to you at the appointment,” says Lasich.
In Fairfax County, though, that isn’t yet the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
This article has been updated to further clarify that Fairfax County did receive an initial allotment of J&J doses but allocated them to Inova, which is a partner of the county.
Photo via Fairfax County Health Department
Fairfax County’s COVID-19 inoculation efforts are about to get a major boost in the form of a new mass vaccination site that’s expected to open by the end of March.
The county is collaborating with the City of Alexandria and Inova Health Systems to convert Alexandria’s Victory Center (5001 Eisenhower Avenue) into a mass vaccination center that could accommodate thousands of people looking to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
At a press conference yesterday (Tuesday), Inova President and CEO Dr. Stephen Jones said that, depending on the availability of supplies, the planned facility could enable the healthcare system to dispense 6,000 vaccine doses per day, doubling its current rate of roughly 3,000 doses a day.
“I feel a responsibility to get as many people vaccinated as possible,” Jones said.
Once it opens, the vaccination center will serve residents of Alexandria and Fairfax County. Eligible individuals must pre-register to get in line for an appointment either through the Fairfax County Health Department or, for non-county residents, the state registration system.
According to its website, Inova is currently assisting Fairfax County with eligible adults between the ages of 65 and 74, but it has also served essential workers, including Fairfax County Public Schools teachers.
While the pace of vaccinations continues to be limited by supply availability, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay says the addition of the Victory Center as a vaccination site will ensure the county and Inova can keep up as more vaccines start to come in.
According to the county’s vaccine data dashboard, Fairfax County’s latest shipment from the Virginia Department of Health included 19,220 doses for the week of March 1-7, a step up from the 13,000 doses that the county was typically getting just a few weeks ago.
As of 5:30 p.m. yesterday, there were more than 106,000 people on the FCHD waitlist. 298,332 people have registered to get a COVID-19 vaccine through the county health department, which has allocated 217,476 doses either by administering them itself or distributing them to partners like Inova.
“We were told by the [state] to expect a major increase in doses in the coming weeks,” McKay said. “We want to have the infrastructure to take care of those doses. We can’t control the dosage, but what is in our control is capacity.”
Inova chose the Victory Center in Alexandria for its mass vaccine clinic because of the building’s size and proximity to local transit facilities, including the Van Dorn Street Metro station.
The accessibility of the COVID-19 vaccine has been a top concern for Fairfax County in recent weeks, as health officials say the populations most affected by the pandemic have faced more challenges in getting vaccinated, often due to vaccine hesitancy or limited access to transportation, internet, and other services.
The county has been working to expand its partnerships with other localities, healthcare providers, and community organizations to reach different communities, though the process has not been entirely conflict-free.
McKay encourages everyone who is eligible to get the vaccine to take advantage of any chance to do so.
“This is an act of necessary charity,” McKay said. “It’s not about us, but about every person we interact with, like grocery store workers, transit workers, your children and their teachers…This gives us a convenient opportunity to do the right thing.”
Vernon Miles contributed to this report.
Beginning March 22, Fairfax County Public Library branches will reopen for indoor services.
But library patrons will only be able to visit FCPL branches for up to 30 minutes. Branches will open on Monday and Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and from Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The changes come after the system offered curbside and online services since mid-January.
Each branch will have capacity limits of up to 30 people for community branches and 60 people for regional branches. Customers over five must wear masks at all times.
The system will also institute a number of social distancing measures, including plexiglass shields, social distancing floor stickers, and limited furniture.
Book donations are still not being accepted, and returned library materials will be quarantined for 24 hours. Meeting rooms remain unavailable.
Even as express services resume, curbside services will continue from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day except Sunday.
Great news!! https://t.co/3eSGcwTDyR
— Supervisor Walter Alcorn (@WalterAlcornFFX) March 5, 2021
Photo via Fairfax County
A year ago yesterday (Sunday), Virginia’s first COVID-19 case was reported in Fort Belvoir when a U.S. Marine tested positive for the virus.
Since then, the Fairfax Health District has recorded 68,680 COVID-19 cases. The death toll now sits at 1,036 people, and 3,617 people have been hospitalized due to the novel coronavirus.
Still, in a hopeful trend, the case rate in Fairfax County has continued to fall after peaking on Jan. 17. Just today, the county reported 127 new cases today — a substantial dip from the all-time high of new cases — 1,485 in a single day — in January.
The weekly case average of reported cases has fallen to the lowest levels since Nov. 8 last year, when the weekly case average was 153. As of today, the weekly case average rested at 159.6.
The decrease comes as the Fairfax County Department of Health picks up its vaccination pace. After several weeks of scheduling for people who pre-registered on Jan. 18, the county has begun scheduling appointments for people who registered on Jan. 19.
Last week, the county vaccinated 21,791 people, a pace that has remained relatively stable since vaccinations began earlier this year.
Still, 108,883 people — 37 percent of the total number of people registered — remain on the county’s waitlist. Overall, the county has received 193,742 doses from the Virginia Department of Health and administered or distributed 193,878 doses. 93,560 people in Fairfax County have been fully vaccinated, according to VDH data.
The county has currently only deployed the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Local health officials are evaluating how many Johnson & Johnson doses it will receive, how many doses will be allocated in clinics, and how much will be allocated to the county’s health partners. Last week, the state health department announced that it expects to receive 69,000 doses on a weekly basis.
Images via CDC on Unsplash, Virginia Department of Health
Thanks to federal and state partnerships, some local retail locations of CVS, Walgreens, Safeway, and Harris Teeter are offering no-cost vaccine appointments separate from Fairfax County.
However, with demand far exceeding supply, appointments remain extremely hard to come by, even as the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine begins to roll out.
Virginia is currently in Phase 1b, meaning those 65 or over and those with 16 to 64 with underlying medical conditions are eligible to receive the vaccine.
The Virginia Health Department tells Reston Now, Tysons Reporter’s affiliate site, that more than 80,000 doses are being given to retail pharmacies statewide for distribution, an increase from last month.
The 69,000 J&J vaccine doses announced last week started coming in yesterday (Mar. 4), VDH confirms, and clinics across the state are expecting to start using it today (Friday).
VDH also says that they’ve directed retail pharmacies to “prioritize” those 65 and over to “make significant progress in vaccinating that vulnerable population.” All of this provides hope that more vaccines and more appointments will soon become available for those that are eligible.
Early last month, CVS began offering vaccine appointments at local stores. Currently, it is providing the vaccine through 41 pharmacies in Virginia with appointments booked through their website, but that includes only one location in Fairfax County.
CVS spokesperson Amy Thibault says there are roughly 41,580 appointments per week available at the 41 locations statewide, meaning each store has about 1,000 appointments per week. Most of them are using the Moderna vaccine.
However, as of today, all appointments have been booked at the one Fairfax location.
“In most (if not all) states, the number of individuals who are eligible to receive the vaccine under the state’s rules far outnumber the state’s available doses,” Thibault said.
Currently, more than 100,000 people are on the Fairfax County Health Department’s waitlist. As of Mar. 4, close to 150,000 people in Fairfax County have gotten at least one vaccine dose, and 87,401 people have been fully vaccinated, according to the VDH data dashboard.
Thibault confirmed that CVS is receiving a “one-time allocation” of 212,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week that will be sent to stores in 17 states. Scheduling for that began yesterday (Mar. 4) on the CVS website, with vaccinations starting today (March 5).
She says CVS has the capacity to administer 20 to 25 million doses a month nationwide, assuming there’s an adequate amount of not only the vaccine, but also other supplies.
Other retail pharmacies offering vaccines in Fairfax County face similar challenges.
Safeway and its parent company Albertsons are offering appointments to those 65 and over. According to their online scheduler, the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine is now being offered.
Locations in the county include one on Elden Street in Herndon, South Lakes Drive in Reston, Georgetown Pike in Great Falls, and West Ox Road in Fairfax.
So far, no appointments are currently available at least through March 13 at any locations.
“Store supply is based on allocations from state and local health departments. New appointments are added to the online scheduler as more vaccine become available,” Albertsons spokesperson Andrew Whelan told Reston Now. “Demand is high and appointments are often claimed very quickly. As dose allocations increase, so too will the opportunity to secure an appointment.”
Walgreens joined the federal partnership on Feb. 24 and has started administering vaccines in Virginia. But, right now, there are no appointments available within 25 miles of Tysons, Reston, or Fairfax.
Harris Teeter’s website says limited quantities of vaccine would be available at select locations in Virginia starting on Mar. 1, but a company spokesperson told Reston Now that this hasn’t happened yet.
“Harris Teeter is expected to receive limited quantities of the vaccines soon at nine pharmacies in and around Northern Virginia…Appointments will be released as vaccine allocations arrive,” the spokesperson wrote.
Giant has taken another approach. Instead of creating its own appointment system, the grocery chain is using the vaccine supply allocated to them by the federal government to help the Fairfax County Health Department vaccinate their waitlist.
“People invited from the queue will be able to select from several Giant locations within the Fairfax Health District,” the health department said on its blog. “Locations and details will be included in the appointment scheduler email.”
Photo via Fairfax County Health Department
(Updated at 12:10 p.m.) The Fairfax County Health Department has completed sending out vaccine appointment invitations to 42,000 eligible residents who signed up on Jan. 18 and is now hopeful it will be able set up appointments at a faster clip.
“Now that we have got thru [Jan. 18 registrations], we anticipate that we will move more quickly through the other dates,” Fairfax County Health Department spokesperson Tina Dale told Reston Now, Tysons Reporter’s affiliate site. “In addition, we are working with more vaccination partners, so this, too, will assist us in moving through our registration list faster.”
If residents registered on Jan. 18 or before and have not received an invite, Dale says they should check their spam folder. If there’s no email with the subject line “Schedule Appointment,” residents should call the COVID-19 vaccine hotline at 703-324-7404, and a call taker should be able to assist.
The county’s dashboard now says they are currently making appointments for those who registered on Jan. 19.
Jan. 18 was the first day that the county allowed residents who qualified for Phase 1b to register for COVID-19 vaccine appointments. Phase 1b includes residents 65 years old and over and those 16 to 64 with underlying medical conditions.
When vaccine appointments opened to those in Phase 1b that day, more than 42,000 eligible signed up and registered — far exceeding any other day.
In fact, the county’s vaccine dashboard shows that the 42,000 registrations on Jan. 18 alone matched the number of registrations over the next four days combined.
The county acknowledged when the dashboard launched in mid-February that sending invitations for scheduling a vaccine appointment to everyone who signed up on Jan. 18 would take “several weeks.”
As of noon today, more than 95,000 residents remain on the waitlist, which means they are awaiting an invitation to schedule an appointment.
The county says it doesn’t have an estimated timeline for when those remaining people will receive an invitation to sign up for a vaccine appointment or when the county will open appointments sign up those in Phase 1c for appointments.
However, the Virginia Department of Health expects the vaccine supply to increase over the next two months, Dale says, and the Commonwealth has said they expect to get through all of those who are eligible and want the vaccine in Phase 1b by mid to late April.
Essentially, demand still far outweighs supply — a continued issue since the vaccine first started being distributed in December.
Overall, about 176,700 residents have been vaccinated in Fairfax County, which represents just over 15% of the county’s total population.
That rate is comparable to Virginia and the country as a whole, which have, respectively, vaccinated about 16% and 15% of the population, according to The Washington Post.
Additionally, on Friday (Feb. 26), the county acknowledged that there were issues with about 2,800 registrations “not being correctly captured in the system due to technical errors.”
Dale says that these registrations have been corrected and were a result of a combination of issues, including both “user error and system error.”
Since then, the county has added new features to the registration to reduce the possibility of user error, like providing two fields for email addresses and limiting the number of characters for phone number and zip code.
The county is also asking people to review the spelling of their names and email addresses and to ensure their date of birth is accurate to make sure there are no errors.
Photo via Fairfax County Health Department
The rate of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the Fairfax Health District remained steady over the past week, as Virginia announced over the weekend that a third vaccine will be available for distribution starting this week.
With an additional 132 cases reported today (Monday), there have now been a total of 67,547 COVID-19 cases recorded in Fairfax County and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church. The novel coronavirus has put 3,564 people in the hospital and killed 969 people since the district identified its first presumptive positive case roughly one year ago.
Fairfax County has averaged 198 new cases over the past seven days, maintaining a weekly average has hovered around 200 cases since Feb. 20. While that represents a significant decline from the winter peak of 697 cases on Jan. 17, the COVID-19 case rate has not yet returned to the relatively low levels seen last summer and into the fall before cold weather set in.
With new cases and testing positivity rates falling across Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam has eased some of the public health restrictions that had been put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19.
Starting today, the 10 p.m. curfew on alcohol sales at bars and restaurants has been lifted, and the caps on outdoor social gatherings has increased from 10 to 25 people. After previously being limited to 250 people, outdoor entertainment and amusement venues can also now have up to 1,000 people or 30% capacity.
The most notable development in the U.S.’s efforts to control the pandemic came on Saturday (Feb. 27), when the Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use authorization to a new COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson that only requires one dose, instead of the two needed for the already authorized Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna vaccines.
The Virginia Department of Health said that the state expects to receive 69,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week that will be prioritized for mass vaccination clinics. An additional allotment will go to pharmacies that are participating in a federal partnership that focuses on vaccinating people 65 and older.
“VDH encourages all providers who schedule vaccine appointments to advise individuals which vaccine they will receive,” the state health department said. “…All three vaccines have been proven to be effective at preventing COVID-19-related hospitalization and death.”
According to the VDH data dashboard, Fairfax County has now administered 224,329 vaccine doses to 140,803 people. 83,526 people in the county have been fully vaccinated.
The Fairfax County Health Department is still working through the 44,036 people who signed up for a vaccine appointment on Jan. 18, which saw more registrations than any other day so far. As of 10 a.m. today, the county had registered 267,170 people for an appointment, 95,457 of whom were still on the waitlist.
❓ FAQ: How Much Progress Has Been Made on Scheduling Appointments for People Who Registered on Jan. 18?
👉 As of Feb. 26, approximately 63% of the people who registered on Jan. 18 have either been vaccinated or offered an appointment. https://t.co/RjxBNrvkl5 pic.twitter.com/TwQyl78KJB— FairfaxCounty Health (@fairfaxhealth) February 27, 2021
Images via CDC on Unsplash, Virginia Department of Health
(Updated at 2:35 p.m.) Following statewide trends, the number of daily COVID-19 cases continues to dip in Fairfax County.
As of today (Monday), the number of new cases stood at 113 with a rolling weekly average of 193 cases — the second-lowest number of daily reported cases this year. Only 89 new cases were reported in Fairfax County on Feb. 8.
The number of new cases has continued to fall since cases peaked with an all-time high of 1,485 on Jan. 17, according to data released by the Virginia Department of Health.
So far, 134,359 people have been vaccinated by Fairfax County, a number that includes first and second doses, according to the county’s data dashboard.
The county’s health department is currently scheduling appointments for people who registered on Monday, Jan. 18. A little over 96,900 people remain on the county’s waitlist.
While county officials have touted progress with the vaccination system, the jurisdiction’s decision to opt-out of the state’s new COVID-19 vaccine pre-registration caused confusion late last week.
Since then, the county’s health department has addressed common concerns and questions in a recent blog post. The county is still encouraging residents to use the county’s online form to register for vaccines.
Across the state, 1.1 million have received at least one dose and 481,297 people have been fully vaccinated.
Virginia launched a statewide vaccine registration system that Fairfax County is not participating in at this time. We've received several questions about this and have posted some answers to these and other FAQS. Please see: https://t.co/dRvmdqAlPY#FFXCOVID pic.twitter.com/P2z07NoEnz
— FairfaxCounty Health (@fairfaxhealth) February 21, 2021
Image via Virginia Department of Health
