(Update 3/19/21, 9:20 a.m.) Every Fairfax County resident should be eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine by May 1, a county official says, reiterating Biden’s call last week.

“We fully expect to meet the President’s deadline to open eligibility to every Fairfax County resident by May 1,” County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay wrote in a statement to Reston Now. “Since the beginning, we have had the capacity to vaccinate tens of thousands of people a day, however our vaccine supply didn’t match that. Now that supply is ramping up, we will double down on our priority of getting shots in arms as quickly as possible.”

This also comes on the heels of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam writing on Facebook that May is “an ambitious target,” but an achievable one.

As noted in yesterday’s (March 17) announcement from the county opening eligibility for additional groups, the plan is to move into Phase 1c by mid-April before moving to Phase 2 (general population) on May 1.

Phase 1c includes other essential workers like those in energy, water and waste removal, housing and construction, and food service.

Virginia’s Vaccine Coordinator Dr. Danny Avula provided an even more optimistic timeline in an interview a week ago, saying that everyone who wants the vaccine should be able to get their first dose by May 31.

“We really think we will easily meet that May 1 marker and potentially even outpace it by a couple of weeks,” he said. “We’ll move into that open eligibility before the end of April and everybody who wants a vaccine should be able to be vaccinated by the end of May, at least with the first dose.”

The county is, at this point, non-committal about that that projected timeline and if it’s achievable that everyone in the county who wants a vaccine, can get at least a first dose by May 31.

“We have no way to project that far out,” Fairfax County Board Supervisor Jeff McKay wrote in a statement to Reston Now. “But we’re certainly pushing for more doses, making tremendous progress, and working to meet to President’s charge to make everyone eligible by May 1.”

This week, the county is planning on getting 43,000 vaccine doses from the state which is a jump from last week’s 31,500 doses.

The pace of vaccinations is quickening in the county with private providers and retail pharmacies recently being added to the list of those doing vaccinations. Also, a mass vaccination clinic is expected to open by the end of the month.

Additionally, doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should arrive to the county by the end of the month, furthering increasing supply.

In total, the county has received 290,853 doses from the Commonwealth and has administered the first  dose to 270,213 people. That’s approximately 23.5% of the county’s population.

This story was updated to clarify those eligible in Phase 1c as well as a statement from Fairfax County Board Supervisor Jeff McKay. 

Fairfax County, Falls Church City, and Fairfax City residents who work in grocery stores, manufacturing, and the food and agriculture sectors can now register for a COVID-19 vaccine appointment, starting today (Wednesday).

The Fairfax County Health Department announced this morning that it is expanding eligibility for the vaccine to the next three groups of essential frontline workers included in phase 1b, as defined by the Virginia Department of Health.

“We are opening these categories because our vaccine supply will be increasing over the next few weeks and we will be able to move through our current waitlist at a faster pace,” the health department said in its blog post.

This is the first time that the Fairfax Health District has expanded vaccine eligibility since Jan. 18, when appointments opened up to people 65 and older as well as younger people with medical conditions that put them at high risk of severe illness if they contract the novel coronavirus.

Virginia has been in phase 1b of its COVID-19 vaccination campaign since Jan. 11, but because of the limited availability of the vaccines, Fairfax County had restricted registration based on employment to the top three priority groups: police, fire, and hazmat workers; corrections and homeless shelter workers; and childcare and school teachers and staff.

The pace of vaccinations in Fairfax County has accelerated over the past couple of weeks as the health department has started receiving more doses. Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay says the county got more than 43,000 doses this week — a jump up from the 31,590 doses that came in last week, which was itself a significant increase from 19,220 doses in the week before that.

This latest phase 1b group focuses on individuals who work in the food, agriculture, and manufacturing industries, including grocery and convenience store workers, veterinarians, food pantry and distribution site workers, and butcher and slaughterhouse workers.

However, it does not include workers at restaurants and other food or beverage establishments, who are instead included in phase 1c.

The Fairfax County Health Department notes that newly eligible individuals should be prepared to show “some form of work-related identification or paystub,” since some of the county’s partner vaccine providers require proof of identity.

The Virginia Department of Health announced yesterday that some localities are ready to transition to phase 1c starting this week.

The Fairfax Health District still has five categories of 1b workers — transit workers, mail carriers, government officials, janitors and other cleaning staff, and clergy and faith leaders — who are not yet able to register for appointments.

However, the county health department says it expects to reach phase 1c by mid-April, and by May 1, it plans to open eligibility to phase 2, which will enable anyone over age 16 who lives or works in Virginia to register for a vaccine appointment.

Photo via Fairfax County Health Department

Fairfax County Public School students will attend in-person classes five days a week when the new academic year starts this fall, FCPS Superintendent Scott Brabrand pledged yesterday (Tuesday) at a school board work session.

The commitment came on the same day that FCPS welcomed third and sixth-grade students back into classrooms. This was the final cohort to be phased into hybrid learning, where students who choose to can receive two days of in-person instruction and two days of virtual instruction.

Since FCPS initiated its Return to School plan on Feb. 16, more than 98,000 students and staff members have resumed in-person classes. That number will exceed 109,000 students when the transition finishes this Thursday (March 19), according to Brabrand.

Brabrand told the school board that a combination of low levels of reported COVID-19 transmission in schools, declining case rates in the county as a whole, accelerating vaccination efforts, and new research on social distancing in schools gave FCPS officials the confidence to plan to begin the upcoming 2021-2022 school year with full-time in-person classes.

“We have shown that we can return our students and staff to our buildings in a way that is safe and steady,” Brabrand said. “We are confident that we can deliver on a five-day return for all students in the fall, knowing that, while we can adapt to any situation, in-person learning really is the best option for our students and staff.”

According to a presentation by FCPS staff, 0.2% of 86,526 students and staff expected to return to in-person classes have tested positive for COVID-19 since Jan. 26, and only 0.02% reported being infected due to transmission in schools.

As of Tuesday, FCPS had recorded 1,107 cases among students, staff, and visitors since Sept. 8.

FCPS Department of Special Services Assistant Superintendent Michelle Boyd reported that the “overwhelming majority” of employees have now been vaccinated, and the school system is working with partners like the Fairfax County Health Department and Inova to get the vaccine to the remaining individuals.

FCPS also anticipates having in-person graduation ceremonies for this year’s high school seniors, though rules for prom, all-night graduation parties, and other social gatherings will likely be more stringent.

Brabrand said Gov. Ralph Northam and the Virginia Department of Health are expected to issue guidance for school districts before April.

With all grade levels now in hybrid learning, FCPS has started to plan for summer school, which will take place in person from late June to early August at all schools for over 40,000 students — 10 times the usual summer school attendance, according to FCPS Chief Academic Officer Sloan Presidio.

Presidio says schools will coordinate enrollment in summer programs with individual families “based on identified student need” in terms of both academic and social-emotional factors.

FCPS also plans to provide up to four days of in-person classes starting after spring break to students who have been struggling the most this year, particularly students with disabilities and English-language learners.

To ensure there is room for those students, anyone who opted for hybrid learning must be in attendance by March 26, the day before spring break begins, or they could be reverted to all-virtual classes.

“If students have registered to attend in-person, we need them to do so on a regular basis,” Presidio said. “It’s really important, because those seats and the capacity in our buildings really is at a premium.”

Even if social distancing guidelines shrink from six feet to three feet, as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering, Brabrand cautioned that expanding in-person learning will carry challenges, from ensuring there is adequate space and staffing to convincing skeptical families that schools can operate safely with mitigation measures in place.

He told the school board that limited virtual learning will still be available on a more case-by-case basis, but FCPS believes that most students need in-person classes to have the best chance at being successful in school.

“We have an equity imperative to have all of our students back in person in the 2021-22 school year who don’t otherwise have specific health conditions that would prevent them from returning in the fall,” Brabrand said.

Staff photo by Jay Westcott, slides via FCPS

More than 100 private health care providers in Fairfax County are currently going through the steps to be able to provide COVID-19 vaccines to the public soon, county officials tells Reston Now and Tysons Reporter.

This includes private practices, clinics, and urgent care centers.

This comes on the heels of the county’s announcement late last week that this was set to happen in the coming weeks.

“The process to become approved to administer COVID-19 vaccine requires several steps,” writes a County Health Department spokesperson, “That starts with filing an intent form with VDH, completing a CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Provider Agreement and completing the Fairfax County Health Department’s compliance check.

Of those 100 plus private health care providers, approximately 35 are in the process of completing the Fairfax County Health Department’s compliance check. The timeline for completion differs for each provider, notes a spokesperson.

A “handful” of private providers have completed all of the steps and can now offer the COVID-19 vaccine to their patients. Health Department officials declined to provide an exact number or name of the providers.

Providers won’t be able to choose a specific COVID-19 vaccine to offer to their patients, since vaccine availability is dependent on what the county receives from the Commonwealth.

“We know many residents in our community will be excited to hear that their own health care providers may soon offer vaccine,” Fairfax County Health Department’s Director of Health Dr. Gloria Addo-Ayensu wrote in the health department’s blog post. “However, we do encourage residents to be patient while more practices meet the state requirements. Once a provider is able to offer vaccine, they will notify their patients directly.”

The county is also asking residents if they do receive the vaccine from a private provider and previously registered with the county’s health department to remove themselves from the waitlist.

In recent weeks, Fairfax County has begun to diversify where residents are able to get their COVID-19 vaccine.

This includes retail pharmacies, including CVS, Walgreens, Safeway, and Harris Teeter. Giant is directly partnering with the county to vaccinate off the their waitlist. However, appointments still remain scarce at the retail pharmacies.

In general, vaccinations in the county are moving at a faster pace than last month.

But the county is still struggling to catch up to demand after being the only jurisdiction to opt out of Virginia’s appointment system, with 104,000 people on the waitlist of 326,000 currently registered.

So far, the county had 267,000 people receive at least one dose of the vaccine, about 23% of the county’s total population. About half of those have been administered by the health department.

Appointments are currently being scheduled for those who signed up on January 28 or earlier.

Photo by Karen Bolt/Fairfax County Public Schools

The COVID-19 vaccination process has been ramping up in Fairfax County in recent weeks, as supplies increase and more partners come on board to help administer the vaccines.

While eligibility for the vaccine has not expanded since mid-January, Fairfax County’s allocation of vaccine has grown over the past month or so from 13,000 to 19,220 first doses per week, and the size of shipments are expected to continue increasing throughout March, allowing the county health department to get through its existing waitlist more quickly.

As of 5 p.m. yesterday (Thursday), more than 111,000 people were waiting for appointments to get vaccinated. A total of 307,659 people have registered through the Fairfax County Health Department, which administered 21,791 first doses during the week of March 1-7.

The authorization of a third vaccine manufactured by Johnson & Johnson helps increase supply, giving providers another option on top of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that have been available since December, according to the Fairfax County Health Department.

Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which both require two shots separated by three or four weeks, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine needs only one dose. It is also easier to store and seems to less apt to trigger strong side effects.

The J&J vaccine is slightly less effective at guarding against severe disease caused by COVID-19, with an 85% efficacy rate compared to 95% and 94.1% for Pfizer and Moderna, respectively. However, differences in how clinical trials were conducted make comparisons inexact, and all three are considered “extremely effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalization, and death,” FCHD says.

Fairfax County currently doesn’t offer a choice between the vaccines, since the health department has been primarily utilizing Pfizer for first doses. The county has been sending its J&J allocation to Inova, which expects to double its capacity later this month with the launch of a new mass vaccination center in Alexandria.

The FCHD says it anticipates starting to use the J&J vaccine by the end of March, though the number of doses is unknown at this time. For now, officials say people should take whichever vaccine becomes available to them.

If you were given a choice, though, which would you prefer? Would you want to get the process over with in one shot, or do you have more confidence in the two-shot Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?

Staff photo by Jay Westcott

(Updated at 11:05 am on 3/12/21)  The Fairfax County Health Department decided to send their initial allotment of 3,800 doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to local Inova hospitals, according to the Virginia Department of Health.

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 confirms this and tells Reston Now 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 confirms 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 that 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 potentially could 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 tells Reston Now that 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.

Updated to further clarify that the initial allotment of J&J doses sent to the county are going to Inova hospitals, which is a partner of the county.

Fire Watch In Effect — A fire weather watch is in effect today from noon to 5 p.m. The National Weather Service notes that breezy winds, low humidity and dry conditions can cause fires to spread rapidly. [Ready Fairfax]

County 9-1-1 Service Officially Restored — The county’s 9-1-1 line is running smoothly again. Most of the day on Wednesday, call capacity was limited and callers experienced longer wait times. [Fairfax County Government]

The Top Ten Percent — Ten percent of Virginians are officially fully vaccinated and more than two million doses have been administered throughout the state, according to state data. Older adults have the most vaccine doses among age groups. [Reston Patch]

Metro Dodges Service Cuts — The passage of the American Recovery Plan will help Metro avert major service cuts and layoffs. However, the direct impact of the passage of the federal relief package is still unclear. Metro’s Board of Directors chairman notes that it is not yet known how much Metro will receive. [Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority]

Photo via vantagehill/Flickr

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.

A year ago yesterday, 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 COVID-19 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 is 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 doses will be allocated in clinics, and how much will be allocated to the county’s health partners. Last week, the state’s health department announced that it expects to receive 69,000 doses on a weekly basis.

Image via Unsplash 

(Update: 10:45 a.m.) Thanks to federal and state partnerships, some local retail locations of CVS, Walgreens, Safeway, and Harris Teeter are all offering no-cost vaccine appointments separate from the county.

But appointments remain extremely hard to come by even as the one-dose Johnson & Johnson begins to roll out. Demand far exceeds supply.

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 that more than 80,000 doses are being given to retail pharmacies state-wide for distribution, an increase from last month.

The 69,000 J&J vaccine doses announced last week started coming in yesterday, VDH confirms, and clinics across the state are expecting to start using it today (March 5).

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 its local stores.

Currently, 41 CVS pharmacies are offering the vaccine in Virginia with appointments booked through their website. But that includes only one location in Fairfax County. The location is in Fairfax, but is listed with no exact address.

CVS spokesperson Amy Thibault tells Reston Now there are roughly 41,580 appointments per week available at the 41 locations statewide. Most of them are using the Moderna vaccine. Basic math says that’s about 1,000 appointments per store per week.

However, as of March 4, all appointments are booked at that 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,” she says.

Currently, in Fairfax County, more than 100,000 people remain on the county’s waitlist. About 183,000 county residents have already been vaccinated.

Thibault confirmed that CVS is receiving a “one-time allocation” of 212,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week which will be spread across their stores in 17 states. Scheduling for that began yesterday (March 4) on the CVS website and administrating begins today (March 5).

She says that CVS has the capacity to administer 20 to 25 million doses a month nationwide, assuming there’s an adequate supply of not only the vaccine but also supplies.

At the other retail pharmacies offering vaccines in Fairfax County, challenges are similar.

Safeway, and its parent company Albertsons, are also offering appointments to those 65 and over. According to their online scheduler, the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine is also 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,” writes Andrew Whelan, Albertsons spokesperson, to 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 announced their participation in the federal partnership and started administering vaccines in Virginia. But, at least as of March 4, there are no appointments available within 25 miles of Reston, Fairfax, or Tysons.

Harris Teeter’s website notes that they were to start distributing vaccines this week in Virginia, but a company spokesperson writes to 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.”

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,” reads the health department’s blog. “Locations and details will be included in the appointment scheduler email.”

Hispanic residents of Fairfax County are seven times more likely to die from COVID-19 than their white, non-Hispanic counterparts when adjusted for variations in age, county data suggests.

Fairfax County Director of Epidemiology and Population Health Dr. Benjamin Schwartz reported that sobering trend to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors during its health and human services committee meeting yesterday (Tuesday) as part of a broad overview of the county’s efforts to implement an equity-focused strategy to distribute COVID-19 vaccines.

Knowing that the pandemic has disproportionately affected communities of color, especially Black, indigenous, and Latino people, Fairfax County staff calculated the relative risk levels for infection, hospitalization, and death faced by different races and ethnicities, using white, non-Hispanic individuals as the control group.

According to the county, the results show that the risk of contracting COVID-19 is 1.8 times greater for Black people than for white people and four times greater for Latino or Hispanic people, who are also seven times more at risk of hospitalization.

In Fairfax County, Black people are being hospitalized at more than three times the rate of white people and are almost three times as likely to die from the disease.

Schwartz says the data focuses on community transmission, excluding long-term care facilities, and it has been adjusted for age, meaning it eliminates variances in age across different populations. It shows, for instance, that Latinos are more likely to die from or be hospitalized by COVID-19, even though the county’s Latino population is generally younger and older people are considered more at risk.

“This really highlights the social, economic, and medical risk factors pertaining to different groups in our county,” Schwartz said, mentioning large households, exposures through work, and underlying health conditions among the factors that have made some populations more vulnerable to COVID-19.

Fairfax County Chief Equity Officer Karla Bruce says the county is utilizing its COVID-19 Vulnerability Index as well as data showing the disease’s spread to identify areas that need a targeted approach for vaccine outreach and distribution, often because residents have limited access to medical care, transportation, and other public services.

“There are a lot of intersecting factors which are preventing people’s access to resources or access to the vaccine,” Bruce said. “So, we want to understand and look at how we might be better able to connect people to what will enable them to then connect to the vaccine.”

The county has been working with different community partners, including nonprofits and faith-based organizations, not only to counter vaccine hesitancy with education and trust-building, but also to identify people who are currently eligible to get vaccinated and register them for an appointment.

To improve the accessibility of the vaccine, the Fairfax County Health Department has been developing a network of community-based partner clinics that is expected to grow in the coming weeks, as seen in the slide below:

Schwartz says the Neighborhood Health federally qualified health center at the Bailey’s Community Center and the Safeway community clinic at the James Lee Community Center in Falls Church will start administering vaccinations this coming weekend.

The health department is also looking at sites in Lorton, Springfield, and Centreville, but the agreements are still being finalized.

“It will take a couple of weeks to have our clinics established, to confirm medical and non-medical staff for those clinics, and to get into a rhythm with the vaccinations,” Schwartz said. “But we are anticipating making substantial progress to reduce disparities in who receives vaccination in the county.”

Photo via Fairfax County, slides via Fairfax County Health Department (1, 2)

Residents Can Remove Themselves from County Waitlist — The county has launched a new online tool that allows residents to remove themselves from the county’s vaccine registration waitlist. [Fairfax County Government]

Herndon Police Investigate Series of Car Robberies — In the last week of February, the Herndon Police Department received reports of 15 vehicles being entered illegally. In these cases, only one vehicle showed signs of forced entry. [HPD]

Reston Association Board Election is Underway — This year, four candidates are vying for two at-large seats on the board. Each spring, the organization conducts elections to fill vacant seats on its nine-member board. [Reston Patch]

Photo by Doug Errett/Twitter