More than 22,000 in Henrico, Richmond to be vaccinated week of March 29

More than 22,000 people in Henrico and Richmond will receive their first or only COVID-19 vaccine doses next week.

That’s the highest single-week total yet for the two districts, thanks to the announcement Friday that the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts will be receiving 10,000 of doses of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine – more than one-fifth of the total 49,000 J&J doses being allocated to the state.

In addition, the district will receive more than 12,000 first doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, in addition to thousands of second doses of each.

It will be the second time the RHHD has been able to offer the J&J vaccine; Virginia received its first batch the first week of March, then none during the next few weeks, while the company ramped up production efforts.

Of the 10,000 doses arriving here next week, the RHHD will use 8,000 of them at mass-vaccination events at Richmond Raceway and 500 at smaller events, and it will send 1,500 of them to partner pharmacies, health systems and a rehab facility.

Also Friday, on a call with state media, state vaccination coordinator Danny Avula told the Citizen that state officials may consider shifting even more vaccine doses to the Richmond and Northern Virginia regions (among others) where population totals – and demand for the vaccines – are higher than elsewhere.

When he meets with RHHD and Henrico officials early next week, one discussion topic could be whether the county or city want a private contractor to take over mass vaccinations at either the Richmond Raceway or Ashe Center.

In that scenario, either of the sites could become a community vaccination center, joining four others statewide that were established earlier this month and at least two others coming soon, all as part of a $179-million allocation from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Earlier this week, Henrico officials expressed frustration earlier this week about the fact that the raceway had not been considered as a CVC and said they'd request that it becomes one. They cited the fact that the raceway recently completed more than 7,000 doses on a single day – the most single-day shots any site in the state has administered – as evidence that it should have been considered for the designation.

One reason that county officials seemed to want the designation: the current CVCs (in Petersburg, Danville, Portsmouth and Prince William) each are offering as many as 18,000 doses weekly.

But Avula, who is also Henrico's health director, clarified Friday that those doses are not being allocated in addition to the normal weekly allotments provided to those localities but rather as part of them.

Henrico currently operates and funds the raceway site itself.