As warmer weather starts to tempt Virginians out of their COVID caves, Governor Ralph Northam announced another round of relaxed restrictions on outdoor activities, effective March 1. On Wednesday, Northam amended Executive Order 72 to allow up to 25 people at outdoor social gatherings, allows outdoor venues to have the lesser of either 1,000 people or 30 percent of their capacity, allows overnight summer camps to begin operations on May 1, and extends alcohol sales curfews until midnight, when restaurants must still close.
Northam said that rising amounts of cases during the cold weather and holidays prompted tightened restrictions at the end of 2020, but that COVID-19 numbers are improving
“Now almost two months past Christmas, and with thousands of Virginians vaccinated, we’re finally seeing COVID numbers fall and vaccination numbers rise. That means we can start to consider how to slowly, safely ease some of the measures we put in place before the holidays,” he said in a press conference.
Northam also removed the 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. curfew currently in place, and was optimistic about expanding capacity at large outdoor venues after March.
“If the trends continue as they are, cases down and vaccinations up, I would expect that by April we could be able to continue the 30 percent measure, but remove the 1,000 person cap for outdoor venues,” he said.
Northam said that as Virginia recovers from last week’s winter weather, more vaccine shipments are coming in. The Governor also announced more pharmacies would join CVS as COVID-19 vaccine providers, including Walgreens, Walmart, Giant, and independent pharmacies, but that vaccines might not be available in-store.
“[Vaccine] locations are decided by the companies in consultation with our Virginia Department of Health to focus these efforts on high risk and vulnerable communities, and Walmart plans to hold vaccination clinics at off-site locations that our health department and department of emergency management help to choose.” he said. “So Walmart won’t be vaccinating in its stores at all.”
He said that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would be distributed in Virginia as soon as next week, alongside the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. Northam also responded to criticism from three southwest Virginia legislators: Senator Todd Pillion (R-Abingdon,) Delegate Terry Kilgore (R-Gate City,) and Delegate Israel O’Quinn (R-Bristol.)
On Wednesday morning, the legislators expressed vaccine rollout concerns to The Bristol Herald Courier. “It’s up to the governor and the state health department to make sure we get our fair share and I do not think we are getting our fair share right now,” Kilgore said.
In Northam’s press conference, a Courier reporter asked Northam about the concerns. Northam said vaccine distribution was population based, and added, “The last time I looked at the numbers, which was not in the too-recent past, the Southwest was actually doing very well in how many per population were getting immunized. We will continue to send shipments again throughout Virginia, population based.”
Northam told Virginians to pre-register for vaccines at vaccinate.virginia.gov.
“I think the messages for today, one, we encourage everybody to get outdoors. We know that there’s less chance of spread when we’re outdoors, continue to do the things that we have asked, the measures that we’ve talked about,” he said, mentioning masks, hand washing, and social distancing.
He said, “If we all continue to do the things that we need to do, we will finally be able to put this pandemic behind us and get back to our near normal lives.”
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Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and the Star News Digital Network. Email tips to [email protected].
