FEMA clinic to open in Norfolk
Aims to vaccinate 63K people by mid-May
NORFOLK — In its ongoing effort to curb the pandemic, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is stepping in to give vaccines in Norfolk, targeting some of the most vulnerable to the coronavirus in the region.
The clinic, which will be aimed at residents from South Hampton Roads, Hampton and Newport News, will be funded and run by FEMA. During the White House COVID-19 briefing Friday morning, federal officials announced the
Norfolk site as one of three new mass clinics managed federally, with the others in Boston and Newark, New Jersey.
Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander said the clinic here will begin operating Wednesday, with a goal of fully vaccinating 63,000 people at a rate of 3,000 shots every day of the week. Over six weeks, the clinic will administer first and second doses of Pfizer vaccines, which patients are supposed to get three weeks apart.
After supplies are exhausted, federal officials are expected to reassess to determine whether to continue or hand over operations to local and state public health officials. The doses will come directly from the federal government and not the state’s allocation.
Jim Redick, Norfolk’s emergency management director, said the clinic will be based in the old Macy’s department store at Military Circle Mall, where local public health officials have been inoculating seniors and adults with underlying health conditions for many weeks. The local clinic will continue to vaccinate “parallel” to the FEMA operations at that location, he said.
That the federal agency will manage this site distinguishes it from a clinic in Portsmouth, which is receiving FEMA funding, but is run by the state. That site is giving about 5,000 shots per week. At the Norfolk FEMA clinic, vaccinations primarily will rely on federal staff.
FEMA has been helping states and other partners establish extra vaccination centers. Using data from the census and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s social vulnerability index, it is identifying places where it can reach some of the most at-risk populations. The index considers socioeconomics, household composition, minority populations, languages, housing type and transportation.
A majority of states have disparities in getting shots to vulnerable communities, according to a recent CDC report. The study looked at vaccine administration for 49.3 million U.S. residents between mid-December 2020 and March 1 and found that, on average, the less vulnerable counties had a vaccination rate 2.5 percentage points higher than counties with high poverty, low education and other factors.
Based on the measurements in the study, Virginia ranked 26th among states for doses of the vaccine given to “high vulnerability” populations.
In Hampton Roads, neighborhoods such as Berkley, Campostella, South Norfolk, Craddock and Atlantic Park likely would meet the criteria, though it wasn’t immediately clear Friday which specific communities would be targeted.
The states that bucked the CDC study’s trend, such as Arizona and Montana, tended to prioritize vaccinations for minorities in the early stages of the rollout and offered free rides to clinics. They also partnered with community and Native American organizations.
Public health officials have long acknowledged Black and Latino people are at higher risk of getting COVID-19 and becoming severely ill. During a web-based event for Virginians in January, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said cases are happening at a higher rate among those minority populations, in part because of occupations and living conditions that lend themselves to more person-to-person contact.
Some health conditions found at higher rates among Black and Latino people — heart and lung diseases, obesity, diabetes and hypertension, to name a few — also make them more susceptible to getting seriously sick from the coronavirus, he said.
“It’s really what I would refer to (with) the common colloquial language of a ‘double whammy’ against Black and brown people,” Fauci said then.
Military Circle was chosen for the federal clinic based on its central location in the region and access to public transit routes.
White House officials said Norfolk was one of the three cities picked because of its 19.4% poverty rate, with about half of the population being minorities. Over 3% of the population has a limited English proficiency, and more than 1 in 10 residents is over 65, they said. Existing contracts through the city, such as security, emergency medical services and medical waste, also would allow FEMA to get operations up and running quickly.
Dr. Danny Avula, state vaccination coordinator, initially said the FEMA clinic will be limited to people who are eligible in Phase 1. The state is responsible for handling registration and making sure access is being given to the intended audience.
“We’re pulling down eligible (Phase) 1Bs in Norfolk and the surrounding areas, weighting that for certain ZIP codes, or just to certain ethnic groups, to try to increase access for those communities,” Avula said during a call with reporters Friday. “And then we’re doing a lot of direct outreach on the ground through churches and NAACP and other networks where we can get to Black and Latino residents.”
Norfolk has about 3,700 residents from FEMA-eligible census tracts who are pre-registered. But some 33,000 city residents live in those areas and could qualify if they signed up, city officials said.
The federal clinic is expected to also draw from Portsmouth and Suffolk. For people on the Peninsula, transportation to the mall is available by bus.
Norfolk staff is working with Southside civic leagues to get the word out in neighborhoods. It plans to do outreach Saturday following a Stop the Violence Community Walk with police at East Olney Road and Church Street. Next Friday, it’s planning another pre-registration event at Southern Shopping Center.
As of March 16, FEMA has spent over $4.38 billion on providing COVID-19 shots, according to the agency.
There are over 650 federally supported community vaccination sites across the country. The United States has deployed more than 6,500 federal personnel to give vaccines and support immunizations, said Jeff Zients, White House COVID-19 response coordinator, including staff from FEMA, retired doctors and nurses and military. In the coming weeks, the active-duty troops in the field will increase from 2,900 to over 6,000.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden doubled his original COVID-19 vaccination goal to 200 million by his 100th day in office, which will arrive at the end of April.
“That is the equivalent of vaccinating a sellout crowd at Yankee Stadium, 50 times a day,” Zients said, “or the entire population of the city of Houston, in just one day.”
The FEMA clinic in Norfolk will be appointment-only, open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. People who want to receive shots must pre-register at www.vaccinate.virginia.gov or call 1-877-VAX-IN-VA.