Only the cavernous interior, a few wood-lined display walls, and a set of gleaming escalators remain of the grandeur that was Nordstrom’s 144,000-square-foot store at Dulles Town Center. Incongruously, the Muzak still plays. But now, those who hear it aren’t focused on finding the perfect prom dress, but rather on vaccinating as many Loudoun County residents 16 and older as quickly as possible.
Here, at what has been transformed into the Loudoun County Vaccination Site, a.k.a. “POD” (Point of Distribution), a new fashion statement reigns. Neon yellow vests mark “Observers,” while a more sedate canary covers “Registration” workers. Green marks “Logistics;” red, “Vaccinate” or “Recovery” personnel. Underneath, volunteers for the county’s Medical Reserve Corps – the vast majority of workers manning the site – wear teal-colored shirts while Health Department Employees sport royal blue. Firefighters and EMTs are in uniform.
Dr. David Goodfriend, Loudoun County Health Department director said, “It’s all coming together for a common goal. That’s what makes it work; it’s not the Health Department vaccination site; it’s not Fire and Rescue’s. We have a process that works for everyone and gets people through.” Because the site operates with just a handful of Health Department employees, he said it wouldn’t have been possible without the MRC. “We were fortunate to have a robust, well trained and exercised MRC prior to the COVID-19 pandemic who could be activated to staff this clinic, as they did for COVID-19 testing and other activities earlier in the pandemic.”
County employees also wear vests indicating their positions at the POD, though their underlying shirts aren't color-coded: an employee of Parks & Recreation in khaki shorts and a Washington Nationals hat is the Logistics Chief, and black-shirted Kevin Johnson serves as “boss of the POD.” His day job: Coordinator for Emergency Management for Loudoun County.
For the last 20 years, Kevin and his county counterparts have helped to build an “all hazards” approach to strengthening the county’s capability for response and recovery from large scale incidents. COVID clearly qualifies, but rather than focus on the current pandemic, he says, “The biggest thing that has occurred over those last 20 years is the building of partnerships and relationships.” By these he means partnerships with organizations. “Individuals, they come in, they retire, they get promoted to other positions. People change, but the organizations and the relationships definitely remain in place. What we’re seeing in an operation such as this are partnerships that can be enhanced and sustained.”
One of Loudoun’s most impactful partnerships is the one it enjoys with its Medical Reserve Corps volunteers, anchored in the Health Department which recruits, trains, deploys and sustains them (https://www.loudoun.gov/1352/Medical-Reserve-Corps). Says Kevin, “MRC has been a tremendous asset for the county’s response to the pandemic – not just here at this vaccination center, but at other vaccination centers and testing sites throughout the county.”
Just two full-time staff people marshal the time and talents of more than 1,700 volunteers. One of these, MRC’s coordinator Francis Rath, beams with pride in his members as he ticks off their accomplishments.
- Volunteer numbers have more than doubled since the pandemic began, with each recruit submitting to background checks, orientation and training. Hundreds are weekly being vetted and put into the field, some as young as 16.
- Since March 2020, approximately 200 volunteers each have put in more than 100 hours of service.
- One volunteer has put in more than 900 hours of time since then.
- 1,500 volunteers each have assisted in some manner with the COVID-19 response.
- Collectively, that adds up to more than 80,000 hours of time worth more than $2,000,000.
Perhaps the most important stats: as of this April 23rd, nearly 97,000 Loudoun County residents had been fully vaccinated, and – since the flood gates opened to everyone – the wait time for a vaccine appointment after registering with the Virginia Health Department has dropped to a week or less.
It couldn’t have happened without some serious foresight. Post 9/11, hundreds of local MRCs were formed across the country to provide short-term assistance to local health departments, but few took as active a role in preparedness organization and training as Loudoun’s local chapter, which participated in the MRC pilot program.
Francis, who has coordinated the MRC since 2006, recalls, “No one envisioned that MRC members would be deployed for months at a time on a 24/7 basis in multiple locations simultaneously as they are now. We had to quickly ramp up our number of members – both medical and non-medical – and with it their training so we could meet the new and greatly expanded mission.”
That mission touches every phase of Loudoun residents’ COVID experience, from answering the COVID-19 Hot Line around the clock, to providing testing, to staffing every stage of vaccine logistics. At the POD alone, volunteers with medical training like dentists, pharmacists, veterinarians, EMTs and nurses prepare vaccine doses and vaccinate people.
Among the volunteer vaccinators we met on our POD visit was Dave Groy a retired Leesburg dentist. Jeff Kircher, a pharmacist from Vienna Drug Center, let us photograph him as he mixed the Pfizer vaccine with 1.8 mls of saline to prepare hundreds of correct doses. “We’re doing both Moderna and Pfizer today and whenever Johnson & Johnson comes back, we’ll use that as well,” he says.
Het Mithani, post-vaccination supervisor, lives in Ashburn. He says he was among those who signed up at the start of the pandemic, and serves once or twice a week. “This is incredibly organized. We can get lines around the block here, but that’s kind of normal when you’re vaccinating 3,500 people a day. Once people register, they move through the line in about 10-15 minutes, and then they’re here waiting after their vaccination for 15-30 minutes so we can make sure everything is going okay... There are EMTs and even an on-call EMT with a crash cart just in case someone has an adverse reaction.”
Others without medical credentials handle logistics and PPE stocking and restocking, provide wheelchairs and language translation where necessary, manage sanitation and dispose of used registration, do post-vaccine monitoring and schedule follow-up vaccines. Phill Gross with Logistics details how PPE and other supplies come in on Mondays and Tuesdays and are unpacked in the former loading dock area of the store. “If the zombie apocalypse happened, we could live here probably for a couple of years just on what’s in this building already. There are tents, internet hotspots in case of an emergency – we’re fully equipped.”
Since 2020, MRC volunteers also have taken the lead for the county in providing flu vaccinations and infection control at the elections and primaries. Often working seven days a week, they’ve taken lengthy shifts at long-term care facilities, done contact tracing and provided research support, helping to track the disease’s spread.
The MRC also supports mobile units and third-party vaccination sites that are scheduled two or three times per week, designed to make testing and vaccinations available at gathering places like churches, mosques or synagogues, to help people who would find it difficult to get to the primary center. When such events occur, they’re staffed via email alerts to those in the database who’ve said they’re available to serve. This logging and inputting 10-20 new recruits daily into the database, relies on the help of officials in the Loudoun Department of Information Technology and the Office of Elections and Voter Registration.
Says Francis, “I've had a lot of people tell me how grateful they are just to be able to do something in this pandemic, whether it’s as simple as helping people fill out forms or putting needles in people's arms. Everyone is critical to the process.”
As complex a system as it seems, Francis says all the shifts and staffing is managed online using simple web tools like SignUpGenius.com and Survey Monkey. Of course, knowing how the organization should run is half the battle. To this task Francis, a former international attorney whose resume includes helping to bring democratic institutions to governments in Eastern Europe, also brings 25 years with Loudoun County Volunteer Rescue and as a paramedic with the Combined Fire and Rescue, including four years as assistant chief, and a Battalion Chief in Loudoun County. He also serves on the National Capital Region Incident Management team.
All the experience in the world can’t prepare you for a situation you’ve never faced before, so there’s room for innovation too. Recently, the MRC was recognized by the Department of Homeland Security with an award for “Community Response -- COVID-19 Mission Specific: Testing Operations”for its mobile response units which have made it possible to do remote testing.
“In the photo you’ll see a rolling cart with a cooler on it. We developed a system where we had people go to an apartment complex a day or two before to distribute door hangers and let everyone know a team would be coming by to do testing. If someone wanted to be tested they would put out the door hanger. On the day of the event volunteers would literally go floor by floor, door to door swabbing the residents.” Despite the labor-intensity of the process, the procedure is credited with identifying potential hotspots and preventing outbreaks – so much so that it was adopted by the National Organization of City and County Health Officials as a best practice nationwide.
The MRC also won this year’s Outstanding Volunteer Award for “Volunteer Team” from Loudoun Cares, in a ceremony scheduled for late May.
Of course, all the awards and stats fall short of telling the stories of people like the volunteer Francis said related her experience just spending time with a nursing home resident who hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. The volunteer had the time to sit and chat with the patient, and was able to get her to eat. The volunteer got quite emotional when she told of her time quietly sharing a meal with the older resident. “The personal satisfaction that she felt in just being there and providing human contact – there’s just no way to put a price on that,” Francis said.
He advises everyone who hasn’t been vaccinated to either sign up online -- and as of April 29, residents can schedule their own appointments at https://www.loudoun.gov/5493/Schedule-a-Vaccine-Appointment -- or call 877-829-4682. “I encourage everyone to get a shot – it’s critical that we do this for as many people as possible.” MRC’s biggest need for volunteers is for medically trained people, but “we will certainly not turn away anybody who just wants to help!”
For most volunteers, it’s one foot in front of the other for now. Steve Shoop, a post-vaccination volunteer, “Any day people are getting vaccinated is a good day.” Others see light at the end of the tunnel. Says Het, “I’m looking forward to kids getting back to school fulltime and seeing normal life again. I think kids are the ones who’ve been most affected by this. Adults have the capacity to get through things and understand that things are going to get better. But for some kids, this is all they’ve known for a year. When you’re younger that’s a really long time to form what is in their heads for the future.”