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COVID-19 vaccinations in Virginia have now spread beyond frontline healthcare workers.
COVID-19 vaccinations in Virginia have now spread beyond frontline healthcare workers.
“Our long-term care facilities just started up this week,” Virginia Department of Health Division of Immunization director Christy Gray said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday.
“It will take about three to four weeks to get that first dose with the qualified nursing facilities, and we will also start the assisted living facilities within the next three to four weeks,” she said.
Vaccinations in long-term care facilities are administered under a federal partnership program that makes CVS and Walgreens pharmacies exclusively responsible for coordinating vaccinations. Noting that arrangements are being made with 1,442 facilities for three visits each, VDH’s communications director, Maria Reppas, asked these facilities for their patience.
As of Wednesday, more than 54,200 people had received the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines in Virginia, experiencing only common reactions such as pain at the injection site, fatigue, headache and short fever. term that reflects the work of the body to develop immunity.
“We haven’t heard of any serious adverse events in Virginia with either of these vaccines,” Gray said.
So who is next to be prioritized in phase 1b (essential workers) and phase 1c (high risk adults)?
Virginia is now reviewing the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and plans to announce details by the end of the week.
Promised a total of 370,000 doses by year-end, the vaccines began arriving in Virginia in mid-December and about 285,000 were in the state as of Wednesday with additional shipments scheduled each week.
However, getting shots in the arms of people is going more slowly than expected.
Gray attributed this to logistical challenges and the timing of vaccine availability. “It’s been two weeks, but we spent Christmas there, we have weekends there,” she says.
The situation may also appear worse than it is due to the lag and issues with posting information to the Virginia Vaccine Data Dashboard.
“There could be technical issues that we are working on with the vaccinators to get the data into the registry,” Gray said.
Overall, Gray said she was happy with the progress but acknowledges there is still a long way to go.
“We’ve been planning on getting all of these moving parts in place for so long and now that it’s working and they are falling into place, we’re getting more efficient about it, we’re getting used to all these systems interacting with it,” Gray says. . “So at first we expect it to be slower, but I think it will get a lot faster as we go along.
More news on the coronavirus
Looking for more information? DC, Maryland and Virginia each publish more data every day. Visit their official websites here: Virginia | Maryland | DC
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