NORFOLK, Va. — Virginia's vaccine coordinator said that the state will receive more shots next week and add 106,000 delayed vaccine doses to its weekly supply.
“We are going to see a ton of [vaccine] output next week, so there should be lots of headway made, a lot of opportunity to vaccinate," said Dr. Danny Avula.
Some vaccine clinics in Hampton Roads, including ones in Williamsburg and York County, were postponed Friday due to the delayed shipments.
The Virginia Department of Health said its weekly allocation from the federal government is increasing from 130,000 doses to 161,000 doses.
Plus, the federal pharmacy partnership program will soon double its output in Virginia to 52,000 doses per week. Avula said Walgreens, various grocery stores and independent pharmacies are being added to the program as vaccine distributors and VDH is working out the details.
"The question is logistically how does that happen, some of that could be us downloading our preregister list and handing it to them and making appointments," Avula said. "We'll have more to say next week."
Avula said he didn't know when Walgreens and others would join CVS in providing vaccinations.
VDH could be adjusting how it distributes vaccine doses to prioritize minority communities. Avula said the department is considering a "weighted model."
"[It would] prioritize individuals who are 65 and up, specifically Black and Latino [seniors], and what we call COVID impacts or rates of hospitalizations and deaths," he explained.
Avula said providers should be making second dose appointments when people get their first shot, and by next week, VDH will solve the issue in which people are sharing vaccine appointment links with people who aren’t eligible, leading to overbooking.
“This specific issue of links that can be shared and not intended for has been highly problematic, led to security issues at certain events," Avula said.
Despite increasing supply, public health leaders believe 1B vaccinations will take another two months.
“Looking at probably middle of April for everyone in 1B to get vaccinated so I think everyone in 1C should be planning on months and not weeks," he said.
VDH integrated about 1.6 million entries into its statewide pre-registration database in the last week, before removing about 400,000 duplicate entries.
You can register for a vaccine here.