Pa. to make all adults vaccine eligible by April 19

By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com

Adults in Pennsylvania who’ve been eager to roll up their sleeves for the COVID-19 vaccine received good news Wednesday.
In a dramatic expansion of the statewide roll out, the office of Gov. Tom Wolf and the state Department of Health announced all the vaccine will be available to those 16 and older beginning April 19.
And emergency responders, grocery workers and people in other high-risk groups are able to schedule their shots immediately.
Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam said the new timeline is possible because Pennsylvania’s vaccine supply is growing and getting more predictable, and providers across the state report they are ready for a fresh influx of people seeking protection against the coronavirus.
“Our ultimate goal has always been to get shots into people’s arms efficiently, effectively and equitably. We believe this plan will bring us one step closer to that goal,” Beam said at a news briefing.
The state is racing to vaccinate its population while it contends with a spring surge in coronavirus infections. Pennsylvania is averaging more than 4,000 cases per day — up 60% in two weeks — and hospitals are caring for hundreds more seriously ill patients than they were just 10 days ago.
Despite rising case counts and hospitalizations, Beam said the state is forging ahead with its plan to ease pandemic restrictions on bar seating, restaurant capacity and indoor and outdoor events starting Sunday. She cited the increased pace of vaccinations, but added that health officials will monitor any potential impact on how the virus is spreading.
The state has spent months vaccinating health care workers, people aged 65 and older, younger people with serious medical conditions and others, a group that totals more than 4 million people, or about a third of the state’s population.
Beam said the state is “very close” to finishing that cohort, allowing the state to make the vaccine more widely available.
On Wednesday, about 190,000 to 250,000 frontline workers became eligible to get jabbed, including police, corrections officers and other law enforcement; volunteer and professional firefighters; grocery employees; and food and farm workers.
Starting Monday, all other workers in Phase 1B of the state’s vaccine plan will be eligible, a group that includes postal, public transit and manufacturing employees and numbers between 700,000 and 1 million people, Beam said.
Next up, starting April 12, will be Phase 1C, which includes workers in transportation and logistics, water and wastewater, communications and media, public health, legal services, finance and construction. That population totals between 1.3 million and 1.7 million people.
Everyone else can start making vaccine appointments on April 19.
State Sen. Jim Brewster, D-McKeesport, said Wednesday’s announcement is good news.
“I think we’re ready to do that,” he said of the decision to open vaccinations to those 16 and older. “I think it’s a wise decision to do that.”
Philadelphia, which gets its vaccine supply directly from the federal government and runs its own program, is still focused on vaccinating people aged 65 and older. City health officials said they’re hoping to expand eligibility to anyone who wants one by May 1, perhaps sooner. Philadelphians may still travel outside the city for a shot.
Statewide, Pennsylvania is averaging about 83,000 vaccinations a day. The supply has increased to the point that providers now feel comfortable scheduling weeks out, Beam said.
“We’ve been able to tell our providers, ‘You are going to get at least this floor of an amount of vaccine week over week. And so you can rely on that, you can schedule on that.’ Previously, we were in a world where that predictability didn’t exist,” she said.
More than a dozen other states, including neighboring Ohio and New York, are expanding eligibility to most or all adults this week.
President Joe Biden wants states to make all adults eligible to be vaccinated by May 1. Biden recently said that by April 19, at least 90% of the adult U.S. population would be eligible for vaccination, with access to a vaccination site within 5 miles of their homes.
“I think it’s a good move,” said state Rep. Austin Davis, D-McKeesport, of the plan to expand eligibility.
Davis said that as vaccine availability increases, it’s important to “continue to expand the fold” and get shots into the arms of Pennsylvanians.
“That’s the only way we are going to beat this virus,” he said.
Asked if he thinks young adults will be interested in getting the vaccine once it is available to them, Davis, 31, said “I think younger people kind of were a little bit more ambivalent at first because they’re young and didn’t necessarily think they were going to be affected by it.”
But more than a year into the pandemic, having seen how individuals, the economy and society at large have been impacted by COVID-19, Davis thinks that “people ultimately want to protect themselves.”
He’s hopeful young adult Pennsylvanians will roll their sleeves up for the shot — or shots — to do their part to return to some form of normalcy.
And, he’s encouraging them to do so.
“I am going to get my vaccine just as soon as it’s available to me,” Davis said, later adding that “I would encourage my constituents not to take a chance and to get vaccinated.”
Brewster is also urging Mon Valley residents to get vaccinated.
“I’m not a doctor but from my perspective, the more vaccines we get out, the less we’ll have to worry about these resurgences that come through and these variants that will come through,” he said.
The senator said COVID-19’s wrath hit close to home for him.
“I’ve encouraged my family,” Brewster said. “I’ve had family members who had COVID-19. I had one relative pass away from it, which was a frightening experience of how quickly it happened. It was shocking to me.”

To read the rest of the story, please see a copy of Thursday’s Mon Valley Independent, call 724-314-0035 to subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at http://monvalleyindependent.com.

Sen. Jim Brewster

State Rep. Austin Davis