UPDATE: Henrico to begin second phase of COVID vaccinations Jan. 18

UPDATE: Jan. 13, 3:16 P.M. – Henrico County will not enter the second phase of COVID-19 vaccinations until Monday, Jan. 18, according to Henrico and Richmond health districts officials. During a Henrico Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday night, Henrico Health Director Danny Avula had indicated that the county would enter the phase today.

Instead, Phase 1B will begin next week, and county officials estimate that they will vaccinate about 13,000 during the week. The Virginia Department of Health is requiring local health districts to request by Wednesday of each week the number of vaccine doses they can demonstrate an ability to use the following week, Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas told the Citizen Wednesday, so the county will make its request for next week today. Vithoulkas is hopeful that Henrico will be able to increase the number of vaccinations is offers each subsequent week.

As of Tuesday, Henrico had vaccinated 16,219 people in Phase 1A (which includes residents of long-term care facilities, employees of those facilities, and healthcare workers).

Beginning next week, the county is planning to hold eight 1,000-person drive-through vaccination events next week, including four at Richmond Raceway. Others will take place at county facilities and local pharmacies, Vithoulkas said. In addition to nurses from Henrico County Public Schools, the county will rely upon the help of about 100 medical reserve corps volunteers and about 300 VCU Medical School graduate students to administer vaccines, Vithoulkas said.

To learn when you will be eligible for a vaccine, visit https://henrico.us/health and complete the form shown.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE : Jan. 12, 11:31 P.M. – Henrico County will enter the second phase of COVID-19 vaccinations Wednesday, Henrico Health Director Danny Avula told the county's Board of Supervisors during its Jan. 12 meeting.

The Henrico and Richmond Health Districts, which Avula leads and which operate jointly in many respects, intend to hold eight 1,000-person vaccination events next week, including four at Richmond Raceway, he said.

The two districts essentially have completed Phase 1A of vaccination, Avula said, having vaccinated about 35,000 healthcare workers, long-term care residents and long-term care employees – significantly more than the 11,424 residents from Henrico and Richmond shown on the Virginia Department of Health's vaccine dashboard as having received one or both vaccine shots. (VDH officials did indicate recently, though, that their dashboard lagged several days behind.)

"It started slowly, but it's scaled up quickly," Avula said of the vaccination process locally and statewide. Last week, he was appointed by Gov. Ralph Northam to lead the statewide vaccination effort; he'll temporarily step away from his role with Henrico and Richmond to do so.

Phase 1B of vaccination prioritizes people 75 and older, as well as frontline workers including police and fire officials, teachers, grocery store workers, transit employees and others. Though the VDH ranked employee groups in order of prioritization from 1 to 9 within the phase, Northam and other state officials said last week that local health districts will have flexibility to jump some groups ahead of others if doing so means vaccinating more people faster.

In Henrico, officials are working to begin vaccinating teachers as soon as possible, and Superintendent Amy Cashwell Tuesday announced that a return to in-person learning would be delayed until that process was completed, perhaps sometime in late February.

In a press release Wednesday morning, health district officials indicated that police, fire and hazmat officials, corrections and homeless shelter employees, and childcare, pre-k through 12th grade teachers and staff members would be first to be vaccinated in the second phase.

Health districts will prioritize vaccinations for those who can't work remotely, according to the district.

Anyone who lives or works in Henrico or Richmond may check their vaccination availability by visiting vax.rchd.com to fill out a COVID-19 interest form or call (804) 205-3501 (Monday-Friday, between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) for assistance.

Avula told supervisors that it would be important for localities to host mass vaccination events and other vaccinations at locations other than hospitals, since those facilities also must focus on their acute care responsibilities.

On Tuesday, U.S. Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar urged states to make the vaccine available to all those 65 and older as soon as possible. Whether that was simply advice or a mandate, Avula told supervisors, wasn't yet clear.

"It'll take a day or two for us at the state level at VDH to figure out how that translates to policy," Avula said.

Locally, the Henrico and Richmond Health Districts will reach out as directly as possible to all of those who are eligible for vaccinations in the second phase, Avula said. That could prove challenging, however, when it comes to reaching some older residents who may not have e-mail addresses or use the internet regularly, he said. Officials will attempt to put the call out through as many Henrico County platforms as possible, he said.

Anyone can visit the VDH's COVID vaccination page online to learn more about when they are eligible for the vaccine, he said.

Avula conceded that one concern is the state's registration system – something that it didn't expect to need for the second phase until February.

"We were not anticipating going to [Phase] 1B this quickly," he said. Not having a fully built-out registration system just yet, "that's a big shortfall," he said. "We thought we had more lead time to build that."

Locally, the Henrico and Richmond districts are utilizing more than 100 medical reserve corps volunteer – doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other approved healthcare professionals – to help vaccinate people, Avula said. He envisions similar efforts statewide, ultimately assisted by the National Guard, whose members will help with registering people for vaccinations.