As new vaccination opportunities arrive, Henrico Health officials seek to fill in reporting gaps

A new way for Metro Richmond senior citizens to be vaccinated against COVID-19 arrives this week, though like the existing method, it will be able to serve only a fraction of the people who want to be inoculated.

Registration for COVID-19 vaccination spots at 36 CVS stores in Virginia – including at least one in Henrico – initially was scheduled to begin Tuesday, then Monday night delayed until Thursday before switching back to Tuesday at https://www.cvs.com/immunizations/covid-19-vaccine?icid=cvs-home-hero1-banner-1-coronavirus-vaccine#statetool for seniors 65 and older who already have completed interest forms or registered with their local health districts.

Vaccinations at the stores are expected to begin as soon as Friday, though the company is expected to have less than 1,000 available doses per store on average each week, at least initially. The Citizen has learned that the CVS location at 5001 West Broad Street is expected to be the only county location offering the vaccine. Walk-in appointments will not be accepted.

CVS and federal officials announced Feb. 2 that they were partnering to roll out vaccination opportunities in 11 states. But in Virginia, there’s still some uncertainty about the process and who will be vaccinated.

Last week, state vaccination coordinator Danny Avula indicated that he and other Virginia officials were hopeful that CVS could pull names from the state’s existing list of people who already have completed interest forms signifying that they want to be vaccinated.

But as of late Monday morning, Richmond and Henrico Health Districts Nurse Manager Amy Popovich said she hadn’t heard whether that would be happening immediately or at all.

To date, nearly 46,000 Henrico citizens have received a dose of vaccine, and more than 8,200 have been fully vaccinated.

This week, Popovich said, the 6,300 weekly doses the district is receiving will continue to be used for healthcare workers, public safety and education workers, and employees and residents of congregate settings, as well as seniors 65 and older.

But with more than 117,000 from the groups in Henrico and Richmond having indicated that they want to be vaccinated, it is expected to take until sometime next month before anyone else in the two localities receives a dose of vaccine.

Next Monday, however, the RHHD is planning to make public at http://vax.rchd.com an interest form for people 16 to 64 who have pre-existing conditions. That will be the first chance those citizens have to request a vaccine; health district officials hadn’t opened the sign-up to them yet because they realized it would be a number of weeks before vaccinations were possible for them, barring an unforeseen and dramatic increase in the number of vaccine doses provided to the district.

About 65,000 people in Henrico and Richmond have received at least one dose of vaccine so far, meaning there are about 52,000 people in the two localities eligible in the current phases of vaccination (1A and a portion of 1B).

RHHD officials are prioritizing eligible seniors according first to age, second to race/ethnicity (with Blacks, Latinos and those from other disproportionately affected groups elevated in the process) and then according to when they completed the interest form.

But as they attempt to reach people from those groups considered most at-risk, data – or the lackthereof – is clouding the process.

Citizens are not required to indicate their race or ethnicity on the interest form or when they arrive in person for their shots, and in Henrico, more than 39% of those who had been vaccinated by Feb. 1 opted not to provide it.

RHHD officials, though, aren’t simply ignoring that gap. Instead, they are establishing larger “call banks” of volunteers who are contacting people to register them for first or second doses of the vaccine – and in the process, urging people to provide racial or ethnic data if they haven’t done so already.

“Our focus really is on reaching out to that 40%,” Popovich said Monday. “That’s our focus now, is really trying to collect more of that data to ensure that we have a better understanding of what’s actually happening.”

The district also is getting creative, Popovich said, in how it reaches out to minority communities, realizing that the level of trust they feel about healthcare providers and vaccinations in general tends to be lower than in white populations.

This past weekend, the RHHD hosted several mobile pop-up vaccination clinics at predominantly Black churches, which resulted in several hundred inoculations. The idea, Popovich said, was about trust.

“We are being intentional with our doses,” Popovich said. “Faith-based organizations, community organizations, networks that really know their communities and know their communities of color – they have that trust that we don’t have, and we’re having very specific focused events in those ways.”

Faith leaders views as critical in vaccination process

VCU Massey Cancer Center Director Robert Winn agreed that the importance of faith-based organizations and other community groups can’t be understated as part of the vaccination process.

“The truth of the matter is, there was a period of time where folks didn’t trust their doctors or scientists – but the interesting thing is that under almost all circumstances, they trusted their faith-based leaders,” Winn said.

More help could be coming this month, when a third vaccine (from Johnson & Johnson) is expected to earn emergency approval. It could be in circulation by late this month or early next, Winn and Popovich said.

Winn spoke glowingly of the vaccine, which, unlike the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, is a one-dose shot and can be stored in refrigerators, unlike the other two.

Though the Johnson & Johnson vaccine’s effectiveness levels are at about 70% (compared with about 95% for the other two), Winn said his takeaway is simple.

“The reality is, it’s effective,” Winn said. “At the beginning of this in March and April, we were hoping that we would have the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine be even at 70[% efficacy].”

The annual flu vaccine is effective only about 40% to 60% of the time, Popovich said.

Winn, who is Black, has heard discussions among minorities who are concerned that they’ll be offered only the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and who view it in a negative light because of its lower efficacy levels.

“The truth of the matter is I don’t think that this is a real argument, that there is somehow a sub-standardization of putting in, say, the Johnson and Johnson [vaccine] to at-risk populations because we want to give them the lesser,” he said. “I’d actually argue on the other end – that we’re providing something that’s more mobile, and you can store it in doctors’ fridges. They’re stable, you can give them to people, and it’s one shot – and you get effective outcomes.”

“It gets the job done, and it’s still outstanding.”