To the Fairfax County Community,
The Virginia Department of Health has announced that they will only receive 105,000 vaccine doses per week from the federal government. For context, last week the Fairfax County Health Department alone received over 22,000 doses from VDH for the 168,000 residents eligible for a vaccine. This is in part due to two changes at the federal and state levels, not the County level. At the federal level, there is a nationwide shortage of COVID-19 vaccine. At the state level, unfortunately they have decided to change distribution to per capita, as opposed to the amounts County's and hospital's have ordered. This means, the County will be receiving even less vaccine than we were previously and why, starting tomorrow, Inova will be cancelling all further first dose vaccine appointments.
As always we are ready, willing, and able to vaccinate all of our residents. The above decisions made at the state and federal levels, however will force Fairfax County and Inova to roll back our vaccine operations.
We will work with Inova to help them honor commitments made to individuals who had already been given appointments with them but have since been cancelled. We will also continue to work through our registration queue and offer appointments in the order in which people have registered. Taking a first come first serve approach for appointments to the over 50,000 people aged 75 and up who were registered and in the queue prior to the expansion of 1b, will still result in the prioritization of the elderly, while honoring our commitment to ensuring that schools are ready for opening. We continue to vaccinate public safety personnel and people living in correctional facilities and homeless shelters through special vaccination clinics.
It is profoundly unfortunate that despite all of our efforts at the local level that we must again ask for patience, which is frustrating for all of us. I hate to have to share this news, but I also want to be transparent about the situation we are in.
I will continue to, as we have done from the beginning, push for as much vaccine as we can get in Fairfax County. Sadly we could vaccinate tens of thousands more people than we are, if we have the vaccine coming in. This is especially sad because the Board of Supervisors has invested every resource we have into this effort, as those who have already been able to be vaccinated can attest. We have a very efficient, well-run program that now has to be slowed down.
Please know that I will continue to share information here and on my social media pages as I know it. Vaccinating our residents is our priority.
We recognize that we are in very trying times, but I hope you see in these newsletters that positive change has occurred over the last several months.
As I often say, we are truly lucky to live in Fairfax County where we have the resources to overcome challenges and a community who rises to the occasion.
Jeffrey C. McKay
