All Giant Pharmacy Locations In NoVA Offer COVID-19 Vaccine

VIRGINIA — Giant Food, the Landover, Maryland-based company with locations in Northern Virginia, announced Wednesday it is offering the COVID-19 vaccine to eligible residents at all 152 in-store pharmacy locations. This includes stores in Virginia, Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Delaware.

Individuals 65 and older will be prioritized in Virginia, but anyone in phase 1a or 1b is eligible. Other eligible residents include health care workers, long-term care facility residents and staff, individuals 16 to 64 with an underlying medical condition, and frontline essential workers. The essential worker groups are: police, fire, and hazmat; corrections and homeless shelter workers; food and agriculture (including veterinarians); manufacturing; grocery store workers (including farmers market food vendors); public transit (including rideshare drivers); mail carriers (USPS and private); officials needed to maintain continuity of government (including judges and public facing judicial workers); clergy and faith leaders; and janitorial and cleaning workers.

"We’re extremely proud of all of our Giant pharmacy teams across our stores for their commitment to serving the public and doing their part to help our communities get vaccinated," said Paul Zvaleny, director of pharmacy operations at Giant Food. "We’re honored to have the privilege of now being able to offer the vaccine at all 152 of our pharmacy locations to further assist in efforts to help our communities recover from the pandemic."

First dose appointments can be scheduled at giantfood.com/covid-info. If no appointments are available, check back at a later time.

Giant pharmacies are using Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, dependent on the pharmacy location. If a person is receiving the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, pharmacy staff will schedule second dose appointments at the time of the first dose.

COVID-19 vaccinations are free, but residents should bring their heath insurance card and driver's license to the appointment.

In addition to vaccinations in stores, Giant is hosting some off-site clinics to ensure equitable distribution of the vaccine. Last week, one of the vaccination clinics was hosted at the Arc of Prince George’s County in Maryland for individuals served by that organization.

According to the company, the expansion of availability will increase access for currently eligible residents and future eligibility groups. The expansion comes as all Virginia localities are expected to begin phase 1c (certain essential worker groups) by mid-April and phase 2 (all residents 16 and up) by May 1. Some health districts have started phase 1c, but Northern Virginia's health districts remain in phase 1b.

Before this week, Giant Food offered the vaccine at more than half of its pharmacies. For example, Giant Food locations have been helping the Fairfax County Health Department address its vaccine waitlist.

As of Wednesday, 2,515,287 people in Virginia have at least one vaccine dose (29.5 percent of the population), and 1,346,564 are fully vaccinated (15.8 percent of the population). The state is averaging 65,046 doses administered per day, according to the Virginia Department of Health.

Pharmacies like Giant have administered 851,218 doses in Virginia, second only to health departments with 1,159,011 doses administered. Hospitals have administered 815,634, medical practices have given 565,566, and other community health providers have given 382,157.

COVID-19 data

Daily cases continue to average in the 1,000s. On Wednesday, 1,035 additional COVID-19 cases were reported in Virginia, and the seven-day daily case average is 1,467. To date, deaths have totaled 10,252, which includes 10 new deaths reported Wednesday.

The positive average of PCR tests is 5.8 percent as of March 27. On average 18,017 PCR tests are reported daily in the state.

There are 1,046 current COVID-19 patients across the state, including 228 in the intensive care units and 134 on ventilators. COVID-19 patients represent about 7.9 percent of the 13,124 occupied hospital beds in Virginia. Ventilator use among all hospital patients is at 29 percent, and ICU occupancy is at 77 percent, according to the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association.

Here are the latest coronavirus data updates for our coverage area from Tuesday to Wednesday:

• Alexandria: 10,940 cases, 531 hospitalizations, 128 deaths; increase of 16 cases
• Arlington County: 14,227 cases, 802 hospitalizations, 246 deaths; increase of 39 cases, three hospitalizations and one death
• Fairfax County: 71,411 cases, 3,703 hospitalizations, 1,040 deaths; increase of 97 cases, seven hospitalizations and two deaths
• Fairfax City: 522 cases, 41 hospitalizations, 18 deaths; increase of one case
• Falls Church: 386 cases, 20 hospitalizations nine deaths; three cases and one death removed
• Loudoun County: 25,251 cases, 946 hospitalizations, 269 deaths; increase of 30 cases and one hospitalization
• Manassas: 4,159 cases, 166 hospitalizations, 45 deaths; increase of three cases
• Manassas Park: 1,169 cases, 67 hospitalizations, 12 deaths; no changes
• Prince William County: 41,934 cases, 1,510 hospitalizations, 468 deaths; increase of 61 cases
• Fredericksburg: 1,879 cases, 96 hospitalizations, 22 deaths; increase of three cases and one hospitalization
• Spotsylvania County: 8,845 cases, 289 hospitalizations, 108 deaths; increase of five cases, two hospitalizations and one death
• Stafford County: 10,150 cases, 337 hospitalizations, 69 deaths; increase of 18 cases and one hospitalization