Essential workers across some of Northern Virginia’s largest counties are now eligible for COVID-19 vaccine shots.
In Loudoun and Prince William counties and the city of Alexandria, officials announced Monday essential workers under Phase 1c of Virginia’s vaccine rollout plan are now eligible to be vaccinated. Access has been expanded to workers in the following fields:
- Energy
- Water, wastewater, waste removal
- Housing and construction
- Food service
- Transportation and logistics
- Institutions of higher education faculty/staff
- Information technology and communication
- Media
- Legal services
- Public safety (engineers)
- Other public health workers
- Barbers, stylists, hairdressers
In a news release, Alexandria City said it can now begin offering vaccine appointments to all residents who have pre-registered, including in 1c without further prioritization due to increased vaccine supply.
The city said after those recent increases, everyone who has preregistered in Phase 1a and 1b — residents 65 and older as well as health care workers, teachers and other essential workers — has been offered an appointment.
If you were eligible under those earlier phases and registered before March 30 but have yet to receive an appointment, you should check your email’s spam folder. If you don’t see anything there, you can fill out a form online to check your status.
Alexandria plans to launch an updated appointment system in the coming weeks that will provide an opportunity for residents to make an appointment directly with pharmacies, grocery stores and other providers.
Residents of both Alexandria and Loudoun County are encouraged to pre-register for a vaccine appointment on the state’s vaccinate.virginia.gov website. (If you aren’t sure if you’re pre-registered, you can check the list online, too.)
“We are pleased that we’ve been able to offer appointments for nearly all of those who had pre-registered in the Phase 1a and 1b priority groups, which makes this expansion to include the 1c group possible now,” said Loudoun County Health Director Dr. David Goodfriend in a news release. “Any essential workers who have not yet submitted the pre-registration form online or by phone should do so now so that you can receive an invitation for a vaccination appointment within the next week or two.”
In neighboring Fairfax County, the health department Monday said it was expanding vaccinations to only some front line essential workers to start with. Starting Monday, vaccine eligibility is limited to workers in energy; water, wastewater and waste removal; housing and construction; food service; transportation and logistics; and faculty and staff of colleges and universities.
On the Fairfax County website, the county said it expected to move into the other categories of essential workers later this week.
The Fairfax Health District includes Fairfax County as well as the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church and the towns of Clifton, Herndon and Vienna.
Fairfax County is not using the state’s pre-registration system. Workers and residents of Fairfax County have to pre-register on the county’s website.
Last week, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced all Virginians 16 and over would be eligible for vaccine shots starting April 18. That’s nearly two weeks ahead of a May 1 goal set by President Joe Biden for making all adults in the U.S. eligible for the vaccine.
So far, about nearly 2.8 million Virginians have received at least one vaccine shot, according to the state’s vaccine dashboard. That equates to about a third of the state’s population.
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Looking for more information? D.C., Maryland and Virginia are each releasing more data every day. Visit their official sites here: Virginia | Maryland | D.C.
