Free Covid-19 take-home test kits are available on weekdays outside DC Public Libraries. And there’s a dropbox right there for completed tests.
How are we doing on the Covid-19 vaccination front? I’ve been diving into the numbers.
DC Health, as of August 2nd, estimated that 74.7% of District residents who are eligible for the vaccine (ages 12 and up) were at least partially vaccinated and that 63.8% were fully vaccinated. You can find the data here.
The DC Health data also drills down into “health planning neighborhoods.” What’s referred to as Forest Hills is defined by the boundaries of Broad Branch Road and 36th Street to the north, Connecticut Avenue to the west, Rock Creek Park to the east, and the zoo to the south. And here, 50.77% of 12 and up residents were fully vaccinated.
The Tenleytown (59.59%), Chevy Chase (58.72%) and Barnaby Woods (57.84%) health planning neighborhoods to the west and north had higher vaccination rates, but were also below the District-wide average.
With Covid-19 infections on the rise again, we can and must do better. And perhaps we are. While overall vaccination rates have been flat to lower for the past few weeks, the data show the number of people getting their first Pfizer or Moderna shot has been on the upswing since late June.
If you or your eligible kids still need to be vaccinated, you don’t have to go far to get the free shot.
For students ages 12 and up, there’s a pop-up Covid-19 vaccine clinic at Deal Middle School (3815 Fort Drive NW) on Monday, August 16th and 23rd from 1 to 7 p.m. Appointments are required. Families can visit vaccinate.dc.gov or call 855-363-0333. (The required immunizations for all school-aged kids are also available at the pop-up.)
CVS pharmacies are still providing vaccines. When we checked, same-day and next-day appointments were available at the Van Ness location (4309 Connecticut Avenue), and at the Tenleytown Target CVS store.
If you prefer a medical setting, hospitals (listed here) are still administering the vaccines. It’s also worth checking with your doctor.
Testing continues too
Engine 31, the Forest Hills firehouse at 4930 Connecticut Avenue, continues to operate as one of DC’s free walk-up testing sites on Wednesdays and Fridays from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m. You can register here to save time.
At DC Public Libraries are free tests you can administer yourself. You pick up the kit at a table outside the libraries from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. However, you may wish to call the library first to make sure someone is there. Once you register online and take the test, you have until 8 p.m. that day to drop it off at a dropbox that is also located at the libraries. It takes three to five days to get results.
Covid test packs being handed out at DC Public Libraries.
If you don’t want to or can’t leave your home for a test, you can get one delivered to you.
Pixel by LabCorp will deliver home test kits free of charge. You get results one to two days after the kit is received by the lab.
You can also get a rapid test at home through Ready Responders (202-602-0814, booking.getready.com). The service is available between 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week. Demand is growing and checking for appointments early in the morning is advised.
Or, check with your health care provider.
Robert Metz says
We absolutely need to do better on vaccinations, but I believe the comparison of FH vaccination rate to the citywide numbers is apples and oranges. 47.4% of FH residents are fully vaccinated, compared to 55.1% of DC. However, only 270k of the 389k vaccinated residents accounted for in the DC total are mapped to a neighborhood according to the data. The neighborhood data shows FH is in the top 10 of 49 neighborhoods in DC. The only neighborhood over the 55.1% DC average is union station. Nonetheless an important point raised by this article that we can and must do better.
FHC says
To your insightful comment we’d like to add this one from Facebook.
The summary: Lots of people in our area got in cars and drove an hour, or two, or three, to get their Covid shots. And they are not counted in the neighborhood-level data.
The comment in full:
“The map that DC posted with fully vaccinated population shared by neighborhoods is a significant undercounting of the true rate. That’s because in the neighborhood maps they only count DC residents who were vaccinated in DC, and they don’t even include all of those (see the note next to the map saying “Mapped: 270,229” and “Not Mapped: 29,386”… Add them together and they are a pretty close match for the main vaccination data page’s total for DC residents vaccinated in DC).
“15.8% of fully-vaccinated DC residents were vaccinated outside of DC (8.7% of all DC residents) and if you include those vaccinated by federal entities it rises to 23.1% (or 12.7% of all DC residents).
“So even if you just divided that evenly across neighborhoods, adjusted for population sizes, that would significantly increase it. But our neighborhood is likely to have a higher than average share of people vaccinated outside of DC because in order to go elsewhere to get vaccinated—especially if it wasn’t through your job—you need both the flexibility (such as the paid leave from work) and a car.
“So a neighborhood like ours, with a lot of residents in professional jobs with paid leave, would probably account for a higher share. Also, a lot of Type A personalities who grew impatient with DC’s rollout and just went elsewhere (I include myself in that!)”