Vaccination Information for Dealership Employees
Dear Members,
Several of you, quite understandably, have reached out to us for details on when your employees will be able to receive coronavirus vaccines. Please see below for the latest information that we have on the vaccination procedures for your essential workers at this time.
Virginia
Under Virginia's COVID vaccination response plan, essential workers in transportation are in group ā1Cā of the disbursement process. Based on the Virginia Department of Health's guide for group 1C, our current understanding is that eligible parties will receive vouchers to get vaccinated at designated locations. We are also working to find out how and when those vaccination vouchers can be accessed and/or distributed, and also to determine how the process may differ between various counties and independent cities in Virginia.
Given that many of your employees may live in a different county (or state) than their place of employment, we are also working on securing guidance on whether a worker's state or county of residence may impact their ability to secure a voucher from an employer in a different jurisdiction.
Finally, you can use this link to see which vaccination stage various jurisdictions are currently in; that page also includes links to the relevant health authorities in each county/independent city, who are the final distribution point for vaccines. Most of Northern Virginia is already in phase 1B, while much of the rest of the commonwealth is in 1A.
Maryland
Similar to Virginia, Maryland's COVID vaccination distribution process places essential workers in transportation into phase 2. Currently the state is still only administering vaccinations to group 1A, and will need to get through groups 1B and 1C before getting to the point where essential transportation workers are eligible.
We are trying to obtain specifics on how the state will be notifying employers that their employees are now eligible and whether or not they will be distributing vaccine vouchers through employers. There does not seem to be a clear answer on that at the moment, but we will be sure to keep you posted as soon as we have more information.
Suburban Maryland's largest counties -- Montgomery and Prince George's -- are aligned with the state's priority list, and its' current distribution status. We are in contact with staffers at both the state and county level in Maryland, and hope to gain more clarification on their phase 2 distribution process in the very near future.
This evening, Gov. Larry Hogan will be providing updates on the state's vaccination process; we encourage you to visit the governor's information page this evening to see if more details are released that could impact your employees. If the governor announces anything of importance to dealers or dealer employees at this press conference, we will be sure to let you know.
Summary
In the meantime, whether you are in Maryland or Virginia, please continue doing what you have been doing for the last 10 months -- following all state and local health and safety guidelines, and keeping thorough documentation of your compliance efforts. The next couple of months are likely to be very difficult, but there is hope on the horizon.
We will do everything we can to help you and your employees get vaccinated as soon as possible, in compliance with state and local priorities. Please feel free to reach out to me or Joe Koch (jk@wanada.org) with any questions.
Sincerely,
John O'Donnell
WANADA President and CEO
