2 weekly COVID vaccination clinics coming to Henrico in September

As COVID-19 cases begin to surge again in the Richmond region, Richmond and Henrico Health Districts officials will bring back regular vaccination sites next month.

The RHHD in September will establish two new weekly COVID-19 vaccination clinics in Henrico – one at the Henrico West Clinic, 8600 Dixon Powers Drive (on Fridays from 9 a.m. to noon) and another at an as-yet-undetermined Eastern Henrico location. Officials haven't said exactly when the clinics will begin.

Two other such clinics – one in Richmond’s Southside and another on Cary Street downtown – also will offer vaccinations through the RHHD.

RHHD Deputy Director Melissa Viray made the announcement Friday during a virtual press briefing.

“We’ve learned throughout our vaccination effort that it’s helpful to have pop up events . . . and also stable locations,” Viray said, adding that some pop-up vaccination opportunities also would continue.

The health districts also will begin increasing testing events, Viray said, with plans to have scheduled testing opportunities at one or two locations weekly starting in September, in addition to several pop-up events in specific communities each week.

The moves come as Henrico is witnessing its most COVID cases in more than six months, due largely to the now-ubiquitous delta variant, which officials believe accounts for as much as 90% or more of all new cases. During the seven days from Aug. 14 to 20, the county experienced 683 confirmed cases – its most during a seven-day period since early February.

The majority of new cases are occurring in people 39 or younger, VDH data has shown. That isn’t surprising, since younger populations are less vaccinated overall than older ones; children and teens 12 to 15 have only been eligible for the vaccine for a few months; and children younger than 12 still aren’t eligible.

In Henrico and Richmond, Blacks are the only group of people whose current rates of infection are higher than their rates of population. In Henrico, Blacks account for about 30% of the population but 47% of COVID cases, Viray said.

Viray: Severity of delta variant in children unclear
As the start of school in Henrico nears, one question on many parents’ minds is: How dangerous is the new delta variant of the virus to unvaccinated children?

The answer, Viray said, isn’t yet clear. That’s because while data from Israel and the United Kingdom showed little difference between the way children were affected by the original strain and by delta, the data from some southern U.S. states – where pediatric ICU units are filling up with COVID patients – has been much different.

But, Viray concluded, whether or not the variant is more dangerous, its higher level of contagion is likely to hospitalize and kill more children than the original strain of the virus, simply because more are likely to be infected.

Local health officials have been concerned in recent weeks by outbreaks of cases in child cares and summer camps in the two localities and have been working closely with private and public schools “to be as mindful as possible about the risk to children and to put [up] as many barriers [to prevent infection] as possible,” Viray said.

The best way to protect children younger than 12, who aren’t yet eligible to be vaccinated, is to surround them with people who are, she said.

Though Gov. Ralph Northam recently formalized a mask mandate for students at public and private schools in Virginia – requiring everyone 2 years old and older to be masked while indoors – no such mandate exists for child cares. Viray said Friday that RHHD officials are urging those centers to require masking, too.

“We strongly encourage it because we’ve seen it,” she said. “You saw what happened last summer, and delta’s only more infectious. We continue to strongly encourage it. The hope is that see what happens in other facilities, if it hasn’t affected them already, they understand that the consequences, especially for unvaccinated children, can be disastrous.

“We just continue to try and educate and encourage and really push the ‘why’ – why it’s so important that they put these barriers in play, especially given what we’re seeing with delta.”

Viray also advised people to wear masks outdoors if they’re around larger groups of people or aren’t able to keep sufficient distance from others. And she urged those who can get vaccinated but haven’t yet done so to change that.

“The take-home now more than ever, vaccine is a critically important way out of this pandemic,” she said. “We desperately need to be able to get to a higher vaccination rate and higher immunity rate to best poise us for whatever might be coming down the pipeline with regard to other variants.