Dear Friend,

Last Thursday and Friday, Virginia Hospital Center (VHC) announced cancellations of appointments for doses of vaccines: I'm focused on vaccine distribution and responding to VHC's announcement.

What Happened and Why
The VHC cancellations were made necessary by the Virginia Department of Health’s decision during the week of January 18 to change how it is allocating and distributing vaccines across the Commonwealth. Faced with vaccine supply limits that are affecting the entire nation, Virginia is now allocating its vaccines based on the population for each locality within a local health district – there are 35 health districts, including Arlington.

Vaccines are now being disbursed only to local health districts across the state. The goal is to allocate the vaccines fairly, equitably and with transparency. Arlington is allocated 2,750 first dose vaccines weekly – slightly less than the 3,000 vaccinations we and Virginia Hospital Center together had been administering, on average, weekly. Please know that we are advocating for more doses. See this letter ([link removed]) for one example.

Under this new model, VHC -- faced with a lack of supply -- cancelled all its first dose vaccine appointments scheduled for January 26 and after, including at the Walter Reed Community Center, where they operated in partnership with the County. VHC will continue providing second doses for all those who had first doses. Second dose vaccine appointments will continue at Walter Reed Community Center.

What are We Doing About it?
The County will reach out by email, or by phone if no email was provided, to those on the VHC list who are 75 and older and whose appointments were cancelled. We will seek to reschedule appointments as soon as vaccines become available. And I and we know there are those with underlying medical conditions and those between 65 and 74 who are ready to be vaccinated. We are working on it and your dose is more or a priority to me than my own given my age and relative health.

County staff will to reach out to people in the order in which their appointments originally were scheduled. Unfortunately, it will take days and perhaps a week or more to reach out to everyone. We know that this is disappointing, and we are working as hard as we possibly can to schedule appointments as quickly as possible.

Beyond the initial list, VHC has a larger list that we will be working to contact over the coming weeks. Regardless of your specific circumstances, if you have questions the best way to find out answers is to visit the County’s COVID-19 vaccine FAQs ([link removed]) , which is updated frequently. This page is your quickest and best resource, so I respectfully recommend it to you.
Are we working with urgency?
There is no greater priority for our staff, Board, and me than getting you vaccinated against COVID-19. If you did not have an appointment scheduled and have not yet pre-registered with the County, and fall into the eligible group, then you should pre-register on the County website ([link removed]) , or by calling 703-228-7999 Monday-Friday. We have pulled together a cross-departmental team to incorporate those whose appointments have been cancelled into the County’s vaccination system. Further, we have the infrastructure and the staff available to deliver vaccines as soon as more supply becomes available.

Thank you for listening and reading,

Matt

If you need to contact me, [email protected] or [email protected] are the emails to use.

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