Currently in the U.S., COVID-19 vaccines are purchased by the federal government and distributed in partnership with state, tribal, and territorial health departments. However, in recent months the U.S. federal government has been making preparations to transition to COVID vaccines instead being sold via the commercial market.

In a blog post from August 30, 2022, Dawn O’Connell, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, said:

Our goal is to transition procurement and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics from a federally managed system to the commercial marketplace ... As early as January 2023, the Administration anticipates no longer having federal funds to purchase or distribute vaccines and will need to transition these activities to the commercial market, similar to seasonal flu or other commercially available vaccines.

As of January 26, 2022, the U.S. federal government has not yet announced a transition of COVID vaccination procurement and distribution to the commercial market.

The goal of this question is to understand when Virginia — as well as states generally — will cease to be involved in distribution of the majority of COVID vaccines. This would be the case when the existing federal government stockpiles of COVID vaccines are depleted. Using updated COVID boosters as an example: as of January 26, 2022, the U.S. federal government has distributed 111.7 million updated COVID vaccine boosters out of about 170 million that were purchased in the summer of 2022.