Virginia Department of Health announces updates to vaccine dashboards

By

Nicole Pasia

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Today, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) announced that data about boosters and third doses have been added to its vaccine dashboards. This enhancement to the dashboards is another step in VDH’s continued efforts to provide timely and accurate information in a transparent way to the public about our COVID-19 vaccine response.

The vaccine summary and vaccine demographics dashboards now include an option from their dropdown menus including the combined booster/third dose information, which is also available at the locality level.

Because it is not possible to differentiate third doses and booster doses, these numbers are grouped together. An increase in the “Fully Vaccinated” category is anticipated as people who received one Pfizer-BioNTech dose and one Moderna dose are categorized as fully vaccinated, according to CDC guidance. The definition of “fully vaccinated” continues to be two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines (or a mix) or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

As of October 13, over 241,934 boosters/third doses have been reported. That is a 29% uptake rate based on approximately 815,000 eligible people.

Updates have been made to the “Vaccinations in Virginia” summary with the total number of third and booster doses. A footnote also has been added noting that the number of people vaccinated with one dose includes doses on the “Federal Doses Administered” dashboard.

Updates to the COVID-19 dashboards are continual and this year have included the addition of rates of infection, hospitalizations and deaths by vaccination status to the Cases by Vaccination Status Dashboard that help to represent the impact of vaccinations on infection rates in the Commonwealth.

Data for Virginians who were vaccinated in Tennessee and Maryland also was added to the locality and statewide dashboards. In the coming weeks, VDH is working to incorporate vaccination data from other neighboring jurisdictions such as North Carolina and the District of Columbia.

In August, because of the increase in cases due to the Delta variant, VDH reinstated its Outbreaks by Selected Exposure Settings Dashboard.

In May, VDH published two equity dashboards, Equity in Action and Equity at a Glance that give a snapshot of the progress Virginia has made across out COVID-19 response and recovery programs and also offer a transparent assessment of social determinants of health and other factors contributing to health equity.

In Virginia, 10,973,649 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered and 81.3 percent of adults have had at least one dose of vaccine.

Vaccination remains the most important and effective way to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Virginians who haven’t received a dose of vaccine should consider being vaccinated not only to protect themselves, but others in the community such as children under 12, those who have weakened immune systems or those who cannot be vaccinated for other reasons.

Virginians who have not been fully vaccinated or are eligible for booster doses, can click vaccinate.virginia.gov or call 1-877-VAX-IN-VA (877) 829-4682 to find nearby vaccination clinics. Everyone should continue to follow public health recommendations, such as wearing masks, practicing physical distancing, and avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces. To learn more about vaccination for COVID-19 in Virginia, visit www.vdh.virginia.gov/covid-19-faq/vaccination/.

This press release was provided by the Virginia Department of Health.