Virginia Governor Ralph S. Northam

January 27, 2021—Governor Ralph Northam announced new actions to further accelerate the rate of COVID-19 vaccinations in Virginia. This includes implementing an aggressive inventory management strategy that will put an additional 40,000 shots in arms this week—beyond the 175,000 doses already scheduled, providing clear and consistent guidelines to local health departments for prioritizing the limited supply of doses, increasing data accuracy and transparency, streamlining vaccine registration, and extending mitigation measures. View the slide presentation here.

Governor Northam announced the following actions:

Temporary reallocation of unused inventory. Hospitals will make an additional 40,000 doses available shots this week by temporarily reallocating unused inventory. This will not impact the ability of individuals who receive a first dose of vaccine to get the second dose at the appropriate time, and vaccine providers will receive second doses in proportion to the first doses they administer.

Consistent guidelines for local health departments. The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) is issuing clear guidance to health districts about how to use the limited supply of doses available for Group 1B. This includes allocating roughly half of available doses for people age 65 and older. The other half should be used for frontline essential workers, people in congregate settings, and individuals aged 16-64 at increased risk of severe illness. Local health districts should use the order of priority for frontline essential workers outlined by VDH here. 

Increasing data accuracy and transparency. To increase transparency and give Virginians more information about vaccination progress, VDH is launching an expanded COVID-19 vaccination data dashboard that includes additional information on distribution and usage by health district, facility type, and first and second doses. The new data dashboard can be found here.

Improve race and ethnicity data collection: The governor is directing clinicians to collect race and ethnicity information during vaccine registration and at the time the vaccine is administered. The governor is also backing legislation sponsored by the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus Chair Lamont Bagby that will make it a requirement to collect this information.

Streamlining vaccine registration. Governor Northam directed VDH to accelerate its work on a single statewide vaccine registration system that is currently under development and expected to be complete soon.

Continuing mitigation measures. Governor Northam is extending Executive Order Seventy-Two, which outlines current mitigation measures and was set to expire on Sunday, January 31, 2021, through February 28, 2021. The full text of the amended executive order can be found here.