D.C. region rolls out coronavirus vaccines amid push to reach priority groups

Governments and hospitals are hosting events this week to show residents getting vaccinated as part of an effort to foster public trust in the vaccine. D.C., Maryland and Virginia are reserving the first shipments for health-care workers, first responders and nursing home residents.

Members of the public, officials said, probably will have to wait until spring. The rollout comes as the seven-day average of new infections approaches 7,000 across the greater Washington region - the most since the start of the pandemic.

"We still have a long way to go," Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan said to a group of hospital workers who were vaccinated Monday afternoon, "but you guys are the first. And we're proud of all of you."

Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam said the vaccine's arrival is a "much-needed symbol of hope" for the state. Speaking at the Bon Secours hospital in Richmond, Va., which received a batch of doses on Monday, he urged residents to remain vigilant.

"This is the first step in a months-long process to receive, distribute and administer the vaccine as it becomes available," he said.

Monday's activity came as advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are calling on officials to add those individuals to the Phase 1 priority list, especially if they live in group homes. Research shows that they are significantly more likely to die of the novel coronavirus than others in the public, but Maryland and D.C. officials haven't said when people with those disabilities might receive the vaccine.

"We just don't know where folks with developmental disabilities are [on the vaccine list]," said David Ervin, chief executive for the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes, which operates 29 sites in Virginia and Maryland. "So far, nothing has been articulated."

D.C. officials said "residential care community residents" would be in the latter part of the first phase of its distribution plan, though it's not clear whether that would include residents of group homes. First in line are healthcare workers and first responders, city Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt said last week.

As hospitals in the city received their first doses Monday, D.C. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser encouraged residents to beware of misinformation about the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which the Food and Drug Administration authorized last week. She cited the vaccine's efficacy and reminded residents that it would be normal to experience symptoms such as headaches and sore muscles after receiving it.

Six institutions will receive the city's initial allotment of 6,825 doses this week. Five employees at George Washington University Hospital, including emergency medicine nurses and anesthesiologists, were among the first in the nation's capital to receive the vaccine.

Shylee Stewart, a labor and delivery nurse, said she initially was unsure about receiving the vaccine because of possible side effects. "I was hesitant because I was uneducated," Stewart said. "And then I did my own research and talked to my colleagues . . . and I had no doubt once I educated myself."

Raymond Pla, an anesthesiologist, was the sole Black worker of the five to get vaccinated. His message to Black Americans was that it didn't hurt and was supported by robust research.

"If you want the funerals from the covid-19 infection to slow down and stop, you got to get the vaccine," he said.

Some government workers in the city, including members of the fire department, will be vaccinated this week as part of a campaign to build confidence in the vaccine, particularly among Black and Latino residents.

"My mother died when I was 5," said Lt. Keishea Jackson, a firefighter who volunteered to be vaccinated. "My father is everything to me - whenever I come home from work every day, I have anxiety about passing [the virus] on to him."

Like Pla, Jackson said she wants to "send a message to Black and Brown people" about the safety of the vaccine. "It is my race that is dying at a high rate," she said.

D.C. officials said last week that the city is being shortchanged on vaccine doses. There are nearly 85,000 health-care workers in the city, but because most of them commute from Virginia or Maryland, the city expects to receive only a fraction of the requisite doses in its first shipment from the federal government.

On Monday, Nesbitt said Virginia would provide about 8,000 doses of the vaccine to residents employed as health-care workers in D.C.

Virginia and Maryland are expected to receive 70,000 and 50,000 doses, respectively, of the vaccine in their first shipments. Officials in both states also have said those estimates fall far short of what they need to protect all health-care workers, much less other vulnerable groups such as nursing home residents or those with other health conditions.

Daphne Pallozi, chief executive of CHI Centers, which operates 17 group homes in Maryland, urged Hogan last week to include group home residents in the state's vaccine distribution priority list. She cited a recent study that includes data from Maryland and shows that individuals with intellectual disabilities are at least twice as likely as others in the public to die of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in its vaccine guidelines that states should prioritize long-term care settings.

Erin Beard, a Virginia Health Department spokeswoman, said Monday that group home residents will have the highest vaccine priority in the state. But Charlie Gischlar, a spokesman for the Maryland Health Department, said adults with intellectual disabilities fall under "Phase 1B" in the state's vaccine distribution plan, meaning they will receive it after hospital workers and nursing home residents.

More details on vaccine distribution will be "fleshed out as more information is received from the federal government," he said.

Group home providers, who care for thousands of vulnerable individuals in homes of four to six, say they have struggled to get adequate state and local assistance throughout the pandemic.

When the virus arrived in the spring, advocates say, they received less help in procuring protective equipment and cleaning supplies than nursing homes. In August, a coalition of providers told Virginia lawmakers that some group homes would close indefinitely without financial relief.

Amid soaring community spread, the virus has made its way back into some group homes, providers say. Without early vaccination, they say these facilities are likely to report more deaths.

The greater Washington region on Monday reported more than 5,700 new infections. Virus-related hospitalizations and deaths have trended upward since mid-November and are likely to continue growing until there is a significant change in transmission rates.

"We're seeing record case numbers, and they're continuing to grow, and they're going to continue to increase," said Neil J. Sehgal, assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Maryland.