Many people lucky enough to get an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccination in Fairfax County –including teachers who registered with Inova – are disappointed to find their appointments have been canceled. That’s because Fairfax County is getting fewer doses than anticipated.
On Jan. 25, Inova announced it’s canceling all first-dose appointments “for the foreseeable future” due to the shortage of the COVID vaccine. “Those who received a first dose from Inova and are scheduled for a second dose appointment with us will be prioritized at this time and their appointments will be honored.”
“When we receive more supply inventory, we will first prioritize patients who had an appointment scheduled and then focus on opening further appointments up to eligible groups,” Inova states. “If you are a patient whose appointment is canceled, rest assured we are working diligently to identify new supply and will reach out to reschedule your appointment as soon as we are confident we have a vaccine for you.”
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Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chair Jeffrey McKay blames the shortage on a change in how the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) is allocating vaccine doses. VDH is now basing distribution on per capita, rather than on the amounts counties and hospitals have ordered, which means Fairfax County is getting much less than anticipated.
In a Jan. 25 email to residents, McKay said the Fairfax County Health Department received about 22,000 doses from VDH last week for the 168,000 residents eligible for a vaccine.
“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 canceled,” McKay said. “We will also continue to work through our registration queue and offer appointments in the order in which people have registered.”
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“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,” he said.
Fairfax County will also continue to vaccinate public safety personnel and people living in correctional facilities and homeless shelters through special vaccination clinics.
Virginia is dead last among the 50 states in the percentage of COVID vaccines administered as of Jan. 25, according to Becker’s Hospital Review.
Virginia has received 1,069,725 doses and administered 451,668, for a percentage of 42.22. States with the highest percentage of distributed vaccines that have been administered are North Dakota (84.35 percent), West Virginia (83.46 percent), and New Mexico (77.85 percent).