In January 2021, the state imposed a four-phase plan to prioritize what individuals by profession and age group would be eligible to receive the vaccine.

[5] On March 8, the state reported its second presumptive positive case, an 80-year-old man from Fairfax who had recently returned from a cruise on the Nile River.

[15] During the same day, a Virginia Beach couple who traveled on a Nile River cruise was tested presumed positive, becoming the first two cases for Hampton Roads, bringing the state's total to eight.

The closure followed closely on the heels of the first confirmed case of coronavirus in Central Virginia in a teenager from Hanover County near Richmond who returned from international travel "to a country...[with] a Level 3 alert" on March 8.

The Code of Virginia permits officials of local jurisdictions that have issued declarations of local emergencies to, among other things, "control, restrict, allocate or regulate the use, sale, production and distribution of food, fuel, clothing and other commodities, materials, goods, services and resource systems which fall only within the boundaries of that jurisdiction and which do not impact systems affecting adjoining or other political subdivisions" without being under the supervision and control of the Governor.

[68] However, the Washington Post reported on March 28 that the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia had designated construction as well as several other types of businesses as essential.

[70][71] Jerry Falwell Jr. announced that Liberty University was reopening its dorms to students who wished to return to campus from spring break even though classes were being taught online.

The order required everyone to remain at their place of residence, with certain specified exceptions (including traveling to work, to obtain food and for outdoor exercise).

[78] On April 3, Governor Northam announced that the Dulles Expo Center will be the interim site of the first field hospital in Northern Virginia.

[79] On April 10, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle reported that Virginia had not implemented a closure of non-essential services.

[81] On Monday April 13, Reuters reported that 42 of the 154 COVID-19 deaths in Virginia occurred at the Canterbury Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Henrico County, a nursing home located near Richmond.

[84] On April 16, demonstrators gathered in Richmond's Capitol Square in front of the Executive Mansion to protest Northam's closure and stay at home orders.

[94] The order has been criticized for its deliberately ambiguous wording which mandates facial coverings but allows full discretion of a patron on how to define a "health or medical" exception.

It further holds that a patron is neither required to show proof nor declare verbally what health or medical condition applies to his decision for going without a facial covering.

The regulations include mandates about control measures and prohibits retaliation against workers for expressing concern about infection risk, and provides for fines of up to US$130,000 for companies found in violation.

[99][100] On July 31, the Arlington County Board adopted during a closed session an emergency ordinance that prohibited groups of more than three people from congregating on posted streets and sidewalks.

People who refused to comply when on posted sidewalks in such commercial areas as Clarendon and Crystal City could receive fines up to $100.

[103] On September 1, Governor Northam expressed concern about Southwestern Virginia, which was reporting 229 new cases each day and does not have a large number of hospitals.

On December 9, Governor Northam announced new restrictions through an Executive Order, this included limiting social gatherings from 25 back down to 10, excluding educational, employment, and religious settings.

According to Bloomberg, on January 15 Virginia ranked near the bottom of U.S. states in terms of utilizing the COVID-19 vaccine supply that it had on hand.

Additional challenges in these facilities include potential high turnover of occupants and staff, newly incarcerated persons from different geographic areas, limited access to health care, limited space, implementation of disease prevention measures, social distancing, and hesitancy of incarcerated persons to disclose symptoms.

The settlement was in response to a case filed in April 2020 by 27 inmates who alleged that the prisons were not considering their early release despite medical conditions that made them at-risk of serious complications from COVID-19.

[132] As part of the agreement, the Virginia Department of Corrections is required to provide the ACLU with weekly data related to the number of coronavirus cases within prisons as well as information on release decisions.

[136] As of April 6, 2020, the CHIME was projecting that the peak hospital impact of the COVID-19 outbreak would occur in Northern Virginia at the end of June.

[137] On April 24, 2020, the IHME projected that Virginia's hospital resource use and numbers of deaths per day due to COVID-19 had reached their peaks.

Through the use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)[140] technology, the app provides a confidential method of notifying people of possible exposure to those who have tested positive for COVID-19.

The use of COVIDWISE is voluntary and depends on users to enter an auto-generated number into the app when they receive a positive test result.

On May 22, 2020, The Washington Post published an article that Mark J. Rozell, the dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government of Virginia's George Mason University, had authored.

The Post additionally reported that a Republican state senator, William M. Stanley Jr., had categorized Northam's response to the pandemic as being "utter mismanagement.

In August 2020, the NCAA postponed all fall sports championships to Spring 2021, impacting numerous colleges and university athletic programs across the state.