RCAHD COVID-19 Vaccine

The Roanoke City and Alleghany Health District (RCAHD) is working diligently on COVID-19 vaccination plans for the district.  Vaccines will be made available to the various populations identified in the phased distribution plans established by CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and Virginia Department of Health (VDH).  RCAHD is currently in Phase 1a and Phase 1b.

We will continue to work on opportunities for vaccine for eligible population. Information will be announced here on our website, on Facebook, and to the media as soon as they are available.

Don’t know where you fall? Take this quiz to find out which COVID-19 Vaccination Phase you are eligible for.

If you would like to receive more information, please CLICK HERE to complete this survey as the first step in the process to receive information about vaccine opportunities.

After your survey is submitted, we will share opportunities for vaccine as soon as they are available (likely in the coming weeks.) Completing the survey does NOT guarantee vaccination and may NOT result in a registration. Follow up is not necessary after this form is submitted.

RCAHD is offering closed vaccine clinics for Phase 1a and Phase 1b. We are moving through the prioritization outlined in Phase 1b criteria and currently are not able to offer immediate vaccine to all of Phase 1b. We are limited on vaccine supply and reaching all who are eligible in Phase 1b will take time. Follow the below instructions to submit your request and RCAHD will follow up when we are able to reach your organization, if you are eligible:

  1. Coordinate throughout your organization to identify one point of contact for your organization. This point of contact will:
  2. Coordinate with employees who are eligible for vaccine and who would like to be vaccinated.
  3. Assemble one EXCEL spreadsheet of company information and employee information in order for RCAHD to register into the Vaccine Administration Management System (VAMS).
  4. Click here to download the COVID Vaccine Phase1A and 1B Template Spreadsheet.
    • Each employee needs to have a unique email. This email will be their identifier in VAMS. If an employee does not have an email, please encourage them to establish a temporary email. If they are unable, please submit their information and enter ‘n/a’ in the email column. Please do not use someone else’s email for them.
    • The first name / last name fields should NOT contain any characters (dashes, periods, apostrophes, etc….)
  5. Send this one EXCEL spreadsheet to: RCA.HealthDepartment@gmail.com. We will confirm that your organization qualifies for vaccine. If so, we will upload the information for your employees to register for vaccine in VAMS.

Demand for vaccine in Phase 1b is tremendously high, while supply is low. We are still in the first round of Phase 1b, concentrating on the first three categories in the Governor’s prioritization:

1. Police, Fire, Hazmat
2. Corrections
3. Childcare and Schools
If your submission fits these categories or Phase 1a, we will confirm and continue the process to add your staff into the vaccine system. When vaccine supply is available, we will be able to process additional categories from Phase 1b.

By completing the above process, this does not guarantee vaccine. Vaccine availability is dependent on supply and eligibility.


We are excited about the Governor’s announcement that we can expand the vaccine eligibility to additional priority populations in Virginia. As Governor Northam said, this is a major logistical effort and will take some planning. We are working with vaccination partners (healthcare providers, pharmacies, etc…) to establish multiple pathways to vaccination for these groups. Despite the increase in the populations who are eligible for vaccine we DO NOT YET have vaccine supply to support these changes.

We are not able to estimate timelines due to supply issues outside of our control. When we are ready to begin vaccinating these age groups, we will send out a press release as well as post on this website and Facebook.

Virginians who do not fall into these early priority categories will be offered the COVID-19 vaccine when it is more widely available. Once the vaccine is rolled out to the general public, distribution will be similar to the flu vaccine. While we do not yet know the specifics of logistics, we expect that as they are eligible, the general public will be able to get the vaccine from a local pharmacy, primary care physician, Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC)/free clinic, local health department or other clinics that are participating as a COVID-19 Vaccination Program Provider.

Thank you for your patience and support throughout this process. It has been a long journey for us all, but together we will continue to navigate this pandemic one step at time.

For more information about COVID vaccine, click here to visit the VDH COVID Vaccine website.