Oregon’s top health official said Wednesday the state would comply with a federal order and make all residents 16 and older eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine May 1.
Patrick Allen, director of the Oregon Health Authority, made that commitment Wednesday during an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud.
Allen’s remarks came six days following President Joe Biden’s announcement that all states would have enough vaccine supply to make all residents eligible by May 1, two months earlier than Oregon previously planned.
Oregon last week was reluctant to commit to that timeline, with Gov. Kate Brown and Allen on Friday saying they wanted to see doses arrive before committing to it.
Less than a week later, Allen now said the state still doesn’t have more clarity about whether it will be receiving enough vaccines in coming weeks to meet Biden’s accelerated schedule, which is fueled by the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine being available across the nation.
Allen told OPB’s Dave Miller that the state received an order from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services directing vaccination sites to meet the new timeline.
“We will be complying with that order and making all Oregonians eligible on May 1,” Allen said.
Allen said Oregon is “a little bit nervous” about committing to the new eligibility timeline because it doesn’t have certainty it will receive the commensurate vaccine doses needed to open the floodgates to hundreds of thousands of additional Oregonians by May 1. Oregon previously made a pledge to vaccinate seniors in January but had to backtrack when anticipated doses from the Trump administration never arrived.
Oregon is still vaccinating seniors and won’t make the next group of residents – those ages 45 and older with underlying conditions and certain frontline workers in agriculture and food processing industry – eligible until March 29.
Officials had planned to expand eligibility May 1 to people with underlying conditions ages 16 to 44, as well as a long list of frontline workers including grocery store employees, restaurant and bar staff, retail store employees, bus drivers, construction workers and government employees. Under that original timeline, everyone else would have become eligible July 1.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services issued a two-page directive Wednesday outlining the requirement to make Americans 16 and older eligible May 1.
Norris Cochran, the acting secretary of the federal agency, wrote that limiting vaccine administration to high-risk and priority groups made sense in the first months after doses became available in December.
“However, given substantial increases in the supply of vaccines,” Cochran wrote, “it is appropriate to transition beyond priority groups.”
Exactly what that substantial increase in vaccine supply means for Oregon is not yet clear.
States typically have a three-week window through the federal vaccine distribution website where they can look ahead and see what number of doses are coming. Allen said the necessary doses don’t yet appear in that three-week window, which makes him nervous.
“To be fair,” he told OPB, “this administration has generally been pretty good on making good on what it assured us we would be able to see in terms of doses.”
Oregon is still weeks away from what Allen said will be a good problem to have – where the insatiable demand for vaccines gives way to a glut of doses available statewide at providers’ offices, pharmacies and at mass clinics in populated areas. So far, about one in five Oregonians has received at least one dose of vaccine.
In the meantime, the state health authority anticipates that vaccine hesitancy will remain an issue in some parts of the state, with Allen saying that there’s “a real patchwork across Oregon” when it comes to people wanting to be immunized.
Erica Heartquist, an Oregon Health Authority spokesperson, said the Biden administration briefed governors “earlier this week” about his expanded eligibility push, calling it “welcome news” that vaccine production will meet the demand nationally for making all adults eligible by May 1.
Heartquist said officials would honor their pledge to ensure equitable access to vaccines under the new timeline, finding ways to prioritize at-risk groups – even if that means doing so after everyone is eligible.
“We will continue to center equity in all of our vaccine distribution efforts, whether that means ensuring that seniors, people with underlying conditions, frontline workers and Oregonians most vulnerable to COVID-19 have the opportunity for vaccinations prior to May 1 - or after May 1, working with local health partners to ensure these priority groups continue to have access to appointments,” she said in a statement.
Update: This story was updated to reflect that Oregon is committing to making all residents 16 and older eligible, not 18 and older. President Biden previously stated all people 18 and older would be eligible
-- Andrew Theen; atheen@oregonian.com; 503-294-4026; @andrewtheen
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