(Updated at 3:05 p.m.) The Fairfax County Government Center’s COVID-19 vaccine site has reached capacity for the day, as families across Northern Virginia rush to get their youngest kids inoculated.
The Fairfax County Health Department announced just before noon that it’s no longer accepting new appointments at the government center today (Wednesday), citing the high demand.
Roughly 18 months after COVID-19 vaccines first rolled out to Fairfax County, toddlers and infants can finally get in on the action.
As of noon today (Tuesday), vaccines from both Moderna and Pfizer are available for kids under 5 at the Fairfax County Government Center (12000 Government Center Parkway) and South County Hyland Center (8350 Richmond Highway), no appointment necessary, the Fairfax County Health Department announced.
After watching adults and teens across the country go through three, sometimes even four rounds of COVID-19 vaccinations, families with young kids may soon see an end to the agonizing wait for a first shot.
Vaccines for kids under 5 developed by Moderna and Pfizer appear to be safe and effective, according to analyses by federal health officials that the Food and Drug Administration released on June 10 and yesterday (Sunday).
As summer takes hold, COVID-19 transmissions appear to be plateauing in the Fairfax Health District, which includes Fairfax County and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church.
After hitting 601 cases on May 25, the peak for this spring, the district’s weekly average dipped to 457.4 cases per day on Thursday (June 2) and is currently sitting at 479.1 cases, according to Virginia Department of Health data.
More than half of the school-aged kids in Fairfax County — 53.6%, to be precise — are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
That means more than 57,000 Fairfax Health District residents aged 5 to 11 have gotten both shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine since they became eligible for it in early November, according to the Fairfax County Health Department.
Fairfax County’s ongoing Covid surge reached new heights this week.
The county is now seeing a “medium” level of COVID-19 in the community. This is the first time that the county’s classification has changed since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adopted its current metrics for measuring the disease’s spread in February.
The calendar may have turned a page, but COVID-19 cases in Fairfax County keep going up.
The Fairfax Health District, which also includes Fairfax and Falls Church cities, has added 812 cases over the past three days, according to the Virginia Department of Health, which didn’t report new cases on Saturday or Sunday (April 30-May 1).
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Fairfax County’s COVID-19 transmission level is still well below where it was this past winter, but a rise in cases that was barely perceptible a week ago has started to solidify into a more concrete trend.
The Fairfax Health District, which includes Fairfax and Falls Church cities, is averaging 167 cases a day for the past week. That’s the highest weekly average since Feb. 18 (169 cases) and more than twice this year’s low point of 77 cases on March 22, according to Virginia Department of Health data.
(Updated at 2:45 p.m.) Your perception of the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in Fairfax County might vary depending on which data dashboard you’re looking at.
For instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classifies the county’s COVID-19 community level as “low” based on the hospitalization metrics that the federal agency has used since February.
