By Taylor Boyd
An estimated 15,000 people registered to get the COVID-19 vaccine between the online and paper forms since registration opened on Monday, Jan. 25, Nancy Bell, public information officer for the West Piedmont Health District (WPHD), said.
“We didn’t know what to expect, but we knew interest in receiving the vaccine was high, especially among the 65 plus population,” Bell said, and added that those who registered should wait until they are contacted to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Registration puts you in the cue for an appointment. A nurse will call, and the vaccination may be given by the health department, one of our hospital partners, or a physician’s office,” she said, adding that Patrick County Family Practice in Stuart is among those agencies registered to give the vaccine in Patrick County, depending upon supply.
Bell advised residents to get vaccinated in the locality in which they live, and to accept the earliest appointment available, “whether that is a pharmacy, physician’s office, or a health department vaccination event. Folks should not call the hospitals and health departments. An abundance of calls is impacting our ability to perform our regular jobs on high call volume days.”
Health officials in the district are administering vaccines as fast as possible, according to Bell.
“We didn’t get any vaccines one week,” she said, adding that the dashboard on the state website is misleading because “all the vaccinations that Carillon did for us were lumped into the Roanoke database. So, we are working, we are vaccinating teachers right now, we’re doing a lot of things behind the scenes.”
A coalition of hospital, physician, emergency service, and health department partners “currently are working on mass vaccination plans, given ample supply of vaccine and, capacity to hold a large community vaccination event exists,” she said, adding those who have registered will be among the first invited to attend.
At his Jan. 27 conference, Gov. Ralph Northam said he expects vaccination rates to increase in the coming weeks after weeks of slow vaccine distribution. “I understand your frustration. I know you’re out of patience, and I am as well,” he said.
During a previous press conference, Northam said everyone should expect the process to be bumpy at first.
“People can get shots only if we have shots to give, and there has been a lot of uncertainty over that, especially over the past two weeks,” he said, and added that it is important to know how the system works regarding vaccine distribution.
“The federal government contracts with drug companies to manufacture the vaccine. The feds then allocate doses to the states, and we then distribute them to hospitals, clinics, and others to give shots to people,” he said.
Northam said the outgoing Federal Secretary of Health told the states to open eligibility up to everyone 65 and older.
“He said, ‘we’ll send more doses. If you don’t expand eligibility, we’ll reduce your supply.’ Then two days later, states learned that there were no more doses to release,” Northam said. “That made a confusing situation even more confusing across the entire country. It’s not surprising that places that had doses held onto those doses. That led to a reality that is both too much supply in some places and not enough in others in both” Virginia and around the country.
“I spoke with the White House twice in the past week about this issue. I joined a call with the White House and the governors of the 50 states, and what I heard was” that other states are dealing with “all the same issues we’re dealing with here in Virginia. Not enough supply, not enough transparency, lots of logistics, and not enough time to plan,” Northam said.
He noted that he also heard a commitment at the national level to work together to find solutions and get the process moving to get back to normal.
“First, states are going to receive about 16 percent more doses immediately, and that starts with the orders we will place tomorrow. Second, they’re locking in this increase. So, instead of being forced to operate week to week, we will now be able to plan out a month,” he said, adding that this is one part of the critical plan to get more shots in more arms more quickly, but it “all depends on having a stable supply, and trust that the supply will continue to roll in.”
Northam said General Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, told states that after a month of working, the drug manufactures have hit a stable, regular, and sustainable system of production.
“He’s confident they will deliver the doses they have committed to the nation. That’s why he and the rest of the Biden team are making the decision to allocate more doses to the states,” Northam said. “Virginia is now allocating shots to communities based on population. The federal government allocated doses to states that way, and that makes sense.”
Northam said at the beginning of the vaccine process, only healthcare workers were eligible. As a result, the state sent vaccines to where those workers were.
“Now, regular Virginians are eligible, so the shots need to go directly to them. Like every state, we expanded eligibly much more quickly than we expected,” he said, adding this has led to confusion on how to prioritize groups within Tier 1B.
“Half of available doses should go for people 65 and older. The other half should be used for frontline essential workers and people who are at increased risk of illness as the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) identifies,” Northam said.
The second group is “first responders, teachers, and others we have discussed before. These groups are about the same size, but they are very large. It will take several weeks to reach everyone, and I ask you to keep that in mind. I also ask you to remember if you jump the line, you’re taking the spot of someone who needs it more because of a health condition or the job they do in Virginia. We’ll all have to trust each other, and I’m asking everyone to do the right thing,” Northam said.
He said the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has launched a new vaccine dashboard on its website to include more information about vaccine delivery.
“You can see how many doses have come into Virginia, where they have been delivered, and where they are sitting. You can see how many people have received their first shot, how many people have received their second, and how much of Virginia’s population has bene vaccinated,” he said.
As of the morning of Friday, Jan. 29, Dr. Danny Avula, state vaccine coordinator, said 697,914 total doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in Virginia.
“That has been an incredible amount of work over the last few weeks as we have seen capacity grow and grow across the state,” he said, adding that there was a lot of frustration around the state’s national statistics last week and how Virginia compared to other states.
“We were at the bottom, but we are steadily increasing. Last time I checked we are now at 21 on total doses administered. This will steadily improve as we focus on the optimal delivery of the vaccine,” he said. “We really need and could handle more doses, especially with the infrastructure we have built up.”
Northam said “the shots first became available in this country in the middle of last month. We told you then the first shots would go to the people who are the most vulnerable, healthcare workers and those living in long-term care,” or about 500,000 people.
About a month later, Northam said more than 520,000 vaccines have been administered in Virginia.
“It’s important to know that it means that we are on track. It’s also important to know that more people have been vaccinated than have tested positive than in the entire year of the pandemic. We have given 594,828 shots, putting us eleventh among the states, giving more shots than 39 other states. on a population basis, we have reached about 7,000 per 100,00 people. That puts us about 26 among the states and the District of Columbia. That puts us right in line with our neighbors like Maryland, North Carolina, and Tennessee,” Northam said, and added that 64.2 percent of first doses have been administered, along with 19.6 percent of the second doses.
“Virginia has met the initial goal of doing 25,000 shots a day and is now exceeding it with an average of over 26,000 shots a day,” he said.
As of Monday, Feb. 1 data from the Virginia Department of Health suggested there are 3,763 cases, with 252 hospitalizations, and 75 deaths in Henry County. In Patrick County, 1,069 cases with 78 hospitalized, and 29 dead from the COVID-19 virus were reported. In the City of Martinsville, 1,386 cases were reported with 116 hospitalized, and 36 dead.
The data also suggests there are 510,380 cases in the state, with 21,516 hospitalized, and 6,517 dead from the COVID-19 virus. Information from the CDC suggested there are 26,034,475 cases in the United States and 439,955 dead from coronavirus.
Patrick County Schools Superintendent Dean Gilbert was among school employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Gov. Ralph Northam said at that Virginia is exceeding its goal of administering 25,000 vaccines per day, with an average of more than 26,000 administered per day.
Half of the available doses should go to people ages 65 and older, Gov. Ralph Northam said at his Jan. 27 update. The other half should be used for frontline essential workers and people who are at an increased risk of illness.
