Richmond region health districts are among 96 facilities that are receiving Moderna COVID-19 vaccine doses this week in Virginia. Photos provided by VDH
Virginia health districts and health care facilities statewide began receiving the newly approved Moderna COVID-19 vaccine this week, Virginia Department of Health announced Tuesday.
About 140,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine were expected to arrive by Wednesday, as well as 50,000 more doses of the Pfizer Inc. vaccine, which will be distributed to 96 sites across the state. Last week, an initial shipment of 72,000 Pfizer vaccine doses was distributed to 18 hospitals in Virginia, with the first shots going to frontline medical workers caring directly for COVID-19 patients.
The additional batch of the Moderna vaccine, which doesn’t require the same special ultra-cold storage as Pfizer, will allow long-term care facility (LTCF) workers and residents to be vaccinated. Most Virginia nursing homes are taking part in the federal LTCF Pharmacy Partnership Program, which brings teams from CVS and Walgreens to administer shots onsite at the facilities, beginning the week of Dec. 28, according to VDH.
The federal vaccine task force, Operation Warp Speed, is expected to send about 100,000 vaccine doses each week (50,000 of each vaccine) to Virginia for the next few weeks, but VDH cautions that the actual amount of vaccine received here is “a moving target and is dependent on when and how quickly vaccination doses are manufactured.” At the start of the month, VDH officials announced that the state would get 480,000 doses by the end of the year, but revised the estimate to 370,650 doses.
