What You Need To Know About Limited Vaccine Supply, Fairfax City

Press release from the City of Fairfax:

01/26/2021 5:00 PM

The Virginia Department of Health expects to receive 105,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine each week starting this week and will be initiating a per capita distribution to jurisdictions. With this new process, the Fairfax County Health Department will be responsible for distributing vaccine to providers in the Fairfax Health District (which includes Fairfax City and the City of Falls Church, as well as Fairfax County and its towns).

The overall decrease in Virginia’s vaccine allocation, a result of limited supplies nationally, is going to significantly limit the pace at which the more than 156,000 residents are vaccinated in Phase 1a and 1b priority groups who have registered through the health department’s online application system and are currently in the queue to receive an appointment.

Unfortunately, vaccine supply remains very limited so please be patient, as it may take months for some people to get an appointment time.

Here are four things to know about vaccine supply.

1. Vaccine Limited Until at Least March

The Fairfax County Health Department has currently vaccinated approximately 35,200 individuals in the Fairfax Health District since receiving its first shipment of vaccine in late December 2020. Due to allocations that go into effect this week, the pace of incoming doses is not expected to increase until March.

This means we will have limited vaccine supply for at least several more weeks. We are working expeditiously to schedule vaccination appointments each week in the order that the registrations had been received based on the amount of vaccine we have available.

2. How Vaccines are Distributed

Beginning this week, Virginia’s primary distribution of doses is allocated by the Virginia Department of Health to local health districts, in proportion to each district’s population. Local health districts then allocate supply for all the entities that are providing vaccinations in the district.

The Fairfax Health District includes Fairfax County, the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, and the towns of Herndon and Vienna. When the Fairfax Health District receives its allocation from the state, the Health Department keeps some of it to vaccinate those eligible in the 1a and 1b priority groups, and distributes the rest to other vaccine providers in the district, including Inova hospital.

The Fairfax County Health Department works closely with these partners to ensure that the priority groups are being vaccinated based on people’s eligibility and when they registered to get an appointment. This includes the commitment to K-12 public and private school teachers and staff, who are currently being vaccinated by Inova. In addition, the health department is working with Inova to develop a verification and vaccination process for childcare providers.

The county health department will work with Inova to help it honor commitments made to individuals who had already been given appointments at Inova but have since been cancelled, while department staff work through the registration queue and offer appointments in the order in which people have registered. Fairfax Health District residents are asked for patience as this process will be happening at a much slower pace over the next couple of months.

3. Cancelled Appointments

Fairfax County Health Department has not cancelled any appointments for those who have been scheduled to receive their first or second doses from us. The health department only schedules appointments once we have the vaccine in hand.

However, other providers may be cancelling appointments. If you were signed up to receive vaccine from a provider other than Fairfax County and it is no longer available, you can register to get an appointment from us if you meet the eligibility criteria. All new appointments will be added to the end of our waitlist.

4. Second Dose Appointments

While vaccine supply continues to remain very limited, the health department expects to receive enough doses each week to provide second doses to people who are eligible.

Fairfax County Health Department now is administering both the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccines. It is recommended that the same vaccine is given 28 days after the first dose for Moderna and 21 days after the first dose for Pfizer.

The second dose should be administered as close to the recommended interval as possible. However, if it is not feasible to adhere to the recommended interval, the second doses may be scheduled for administration up to six weeks (42 days) after the first dose, according to new CDC guidance.

The Health Department will email patients an invitation to schedule the second dose during the most appropriate window based on the first dose date; in general, patients will receive this invitation 4-7 days before the second dose is due. Patients do not need to contact the Health Department to schedule your second dose and do not need to complete the registration form again.

Stay Informed About COVID-19

• Call the Fairfax County Health Department Call Center at 703-267-3511 with Coronavirus questions; open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends.
• Text FFXCOVID to 888777 to receive updates from Fairfax County about COVID-19; text FFXCOVIDESP to 888777 for updates in Spanish.
• Email questions or concerns to ffxcovid@fairfaxcounty.gov. This email account will be staffed 8 a.m. through 6 p.m. weekdays.
• Visit a web portal for coronavirus that serves as a one-stop online resource for Fairfax Health District information.
• Learn more about COVID-19 on the Health Department Coronavirus (COVID-19) Webpage or FAQ page.
• Follow the health department on social media: Health Department Facebook Page, @fairfaxhealth on Twitter.

This press release was produced by the City of Fairfax. The views expressed here are the author’s own.