To the Fairfax County Community,

As you may have heard, Governor Northam announced today that Virginia is preparing to expand vaccination eligibility to 65+. The Health Department will begin registering individuals in these new groups, next Monday, January 18. It will take some time to get through this group however. Vaccine supply is limited and our ability to vaccinate is dependent on the amount of supply we are provided from the state.

Let me break down some numbers for you:

• Currently Virginia in its entirety receives about 110,000 doses of vaccine a week.
• 168,000 residents in the Fairfax Health District are considered to be within phase 1B.
• As of this morning at 5am, the Fairfax County Health Department had vaccinated 15,980 people since Christmas. This does not include vaccinations administered by Inova or at long-term care facilities.
• As of late Wednesday (January 13), 31,000 residents had scheduled an appointment with our Health Department since Monday.

In addition, we are pleased to be working with Inova Health System to vaccinate frontline essential workers and 40,000 public and private school staff and teachers. More on this below.

We are leading the Commonwealth in vaccinations and are processing folks as quickly as we can. The Board has directed staff to put all necessary resources into vaccinating the public, understanding that the availability of the vaccine is driven entirely by the state and federal governments. I say this because, we need your patience.

I want to assure you that everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be.

See below for the full January 14 edition of my newsletter. For COVID-19 resources mentioned in past newsletters, visit my website. If you have a friend who would like to sign up for this newsletter, they can do so here.