Eastern Henrico site to serve as vaccination hub

The Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will establish a community vaccination hub in the Varina District beginning at the end of March, RHHD Nurse Manager Amy Popovich said during a press briefing Thursday.

Officials aren’t announcing the exact location yet, she said, but the hub is expected to provide first-dose vaccinations for three weeks to higher-risk populations and others who may not have pre-registered for the vacine and then second doses for three weeks after that, just as one at Second Baptist Church in Richmond has done in recent weeks.

In selecting the Eastern Henrico spot, officials evaluated several potential sites based upon three primary forms of criteria, Popovich said:

• their location, typically within a high-risk area or area with high case counts;
• their size, parking availability and easy transportation access (ideally on a bus line);
• how willing and able the partner organization was to assist with outreach and registration.

Second Baptist Church has been a particularly beneficial partner for the latter reason, Popovich said.

“The folks there were really instrumental in not just registering folks in their own congregation but really across a community there and ensuring access there,” she said.

The RHHD is completing its second week of providing vaccines to all portions of Phase 1A and 1B but still has at least several more weeks to go before it’s ready to open the process to members of Phase 1C, Popovich said. That’s because about half the adult residents of Henrico and Richmond qualify for 1A or 1B, meaning there are about 225,000 people currently eligible or who have been vaccinated.

“We’re not there yet,” Popovich said of moving to 1C. “We have plenty of people in 1B who need vaccinations.”

The districts this week and next are receiving just more than 12,000 first doses, she said – up by about 2,000 from recent weeks. The number should rise again during the last week of the month, when more doses of Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine arrive. (Virginia received an initial batch earlier this month but won’t receive more until the end of the month.)

Last week, the RHHD conducted its largest single-day event, vaccinating about 7,000 people at Richmond Raceway, Popovich said.

In some online forums, some people who were scheduled for a vaccination said that they were able to bring a family member or spouse who wasn’t scheduled and get those people vaccinations, too. Popovich said that earlier in the vaccination process, officials did allow some that to happen when seniors brought their spouses but said she does not recommend it for anyone now, because available doses are well accounted for.