RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — This weekend’s winter storm is forcing people to get their COVID-19 booster before testing and vaccination clinics close.
The testing site at the Richmond Raceway looked empty Friday afternoon. Chesterfield’s Rockwood Shopping Center vaccination clinic was a similar sight.
The Virginia Department of Health said in a statement to 8News that community transmission of COVID-19 is coming down and more events are being offered, leading to a drop in demand for testing.
VDH also closed its testing and vaccination clinics this weekend because of the weather.
Christopher Fried was one of the people who treked to a community testing center in preparation for this weekend’s storm.
“I saw the weather report and didn’t want to get caught in that, so I decided to take off work early to get the booster,” he said.
He showed up at the Arthur Ashe Center in hopes of getting boosted for an upcoming trip.
Cat Long, spokesperson for the Richmond and Henrico Health District, told 8News that in the past few weeks testing events have been impacted by winter storms.
“Winter weather causes the most challenges for our events when they’ve been operating at high capacity,” she said. “When an event gets canceled and the surrounding events are full, it’s harder to reschedule those folks into other appointment slots.”
She said this is what VDH has experienced recently with their testing sites, and last year with their vaccine clinics.
Alex Edeady got her booster shot at the Arthur Ashe Center Friday, too.
“I wasn’t sure if things were going to be closed or to what extent, but I definitely wanted to get ahead of it,” she said. “Just before the weekend. I kind of want to relax this weekend and just kind of get things done and over with today.”
For people wanting to get tested this weekend, VDH said there should be no trouble finding appointments for next week.
“We’re no longer operating at capacity like we had been over the past few weeks, so we expect folks who were looking to get tested this weekend won’t have trouble finding an appointment next week,” said Long.