Gloucester County, working alongside its neighboring localities in the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck, continues to partner with the Three Rivers Health District of the Virginia Department of Health, providing necessary resources to help assure residents receive their COVID-19 vaccines as quickly and as efficiently as possible, a county news release stated.
According to the most recent update from VDH’s Vaccinate Virginia program, the state is receiving approximately 105,000 new doses of COVID-19 vaccine per week. Virginia’s primary distribution of vaccine doses is allocated by VDH to local health districts, in proportion to each district’s population. It is then up to the local health districts to determine the most equitable and efficient use of each allocation, leveraging any combination of their own staff and volunteers, hospitals, pharmacies, and individual providers.
Additional doses are allocated to long-term care facilities through a federal contract with CVS and Walgreens pharmacies.
While approximately 50 percent of Virginia’s population is now eligible to receive the vaccine under Phase 1b, there are simply not enough doses available yet for everyone who is eligible to receive them, according to VDH, which also advises that Virginia is not likely to meet the demand for Phase 1b until March or April.
Current eligibility includes frontline essential workers, people ages 65 and older, those with high-risk medical conditions (identified by the CDC), residents of nursing homes or long-term care facilities, and those living in correctional facilities, homeless shelters and migrant labor camps.
Anyone eligible under Phase 1a or 1b based on their occupation should contact their employer. Anyone eligible based on age or medical condition should register with either their healthcare provider (if they have one) or the local health department in the locality where they reside.
If arrangements have not been made through their employer, or individuals do not have a medical provider, they may register with the local health department in the locality where they work.
In Gloucester, county staff members continue to support Three Rivers by facilitating a COVID-19 Resource (Call) Center where area residents can have their name put on a list to receive a callback from VDH when a vaccine is available to them. The number to call is 804-824-2733. The Call Center is operational Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., excluding state holidays.
Those with internet access are encouraged to sign up for a callback by visiting the Three Rivers Health District’s website, www.vdh.virginia.gov/three-rivers.
According to VDH, it may be weeks or longer before vaccination appointments become available for those who have registered. Also, VDH assures residents that anyone who receives a first dose of the vaccine will receive the second dose three or four weeks later as appropriate.
“Everyone is working as hard as they can to ensure all residents who would like to receive a vaccine will be given one as soon as the supply is available,” said Brett Major, Gloucester’s Emergency Services Coordinator. “Meanwhile, we strongly encourage residents to continue to take the necessary precautions to avoid contracting and spreading the virus both while awaiting the vaccine, and after receiving it.”
On Jan. 27, Gov. Ralph Northam extended an executive order through Feb. 28 that maintains a 10-person limit on social gatherings and the requirement to wear masks in public spaces.