Theyâll also be asking the public for support.
âOur nurses, doctors and respiratory therapists are maxed out and could use any form of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our community,â said Lisa Henry, marketing director and moderator of the virtual town hall events.
When the pandemic was in its early stages last spring and into the summer, residents made signs, hosted drive-by parades and put together other âwonderful displays,â she said.
âIf our community feels compelled, we sure would appreciate a little love sent our way for our frontline heroes,â she added.
Likewise, HCA Virginia, which includes Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, is âcalling upon every citizen, business and communityâ to keep their outdoor lights aglow through Jan. 31 to honor those working in health care.
Local health care workers who want to be vaccinated for COVID-19 will get the point of the shots, starting the week of Jan. 4.
Officials with the Rappahannock Area Health District and Mary Washington Healthcare have been working on logistics for weeks and have rolled out a plan that includes turning the Fredericksburg Expo and Conference Center into Vaccination Central.
Ten public-health nurses and 15 clinical volunteers from the Rappahannock Medical Reserve Corps, who have had the first of the two-dose Moderna vaccine, will start giving shots in the arms at whatâs being called Point of Distribution clinics, or PODs.
Each vaccinator can inoculate about four people per hourâthose receiving the vaccine need to be monitored for about 15 minutes for possible reactionsâwhich means the 25 vaccinators potentially could roll through up to 800 people in an eight-hour shift, said Mary Chamberlin, public relations specialist with the district.
The toll from COVID-19 continued to climb in the Rappahannock Area Health District over the weekend as the deaths of five more residentsâall from Spotsylvania Countyâwere reported.
Sunday marked the sixth day in a row that a local death was listed on the Virginia Department of Health website. Two fatalities were added on Saturday and three more on Sunday for a total of 114 local deaths, certified by state officials as being caused by the virus, since the pandemic began.
Three of those whose deaths were recently reported were men and two were women. All were white, except for one man whose race was listed as unknown, and their ages ranged from the 60s to the 90s.