Gov. Ralph Northam speaks at his April 19, 2021, COVID update in Fairfax County.
All Virginians age 16 and up are now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, which you may have heard Monday morning in a loud public safety alert sent to smartphones by the Virginia Department of Health.
All U.S. states met President Joe Biden’s April 19 deadline to expand vaccine eligibility for all adults, regardless of job, age or health status, and half of all adults in the country — 131 million people — have received at least one dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Virginia, 39.9% of the population — 3.4 million people, a little more than half of all adults in the state — have gotten at least one shot, and 25% of the population is fully vaccinated. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine remains on pause while federal authorities study the cause of blood clots that affected six women, killing one in Virginia, days after they received the J&J shot. After CDC and U.S. Food and Drug Administration called April 12 for a pause in administration of the one-dose vaccine, Virginia and the rest of the U.S. immediately stopped using it.
