State expects to have 1.5 million doses by April 10.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Kris Romijin receives MacKenzie Heffernan’s Covid-19 vaccine at the Mountain America Expo site in Sandy on Monday, March 8, 2021.
Urged by the impending end of the state’s mask mandate on April 10, Governor Spencer Cox said he anticipates that the COVID-19 vaccines will be available to all adults in Utah on April 1.
“Once it became clear that the legislature planned to end the mask’s mandate immediately, and with a veto-proof majority,” said Cox’s spokeswoman Jennifer Napier-Pearce, “our government worked with them to postpone the date so that as many people are vaccinated as possible. “
She continued, “We anticipate the opening of vaccine eligibility to all adults in the state on April 1 and we will likely have 1.5 million doses in the state by April 10”.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Governor Spencer Cox removes his mask while maintaining media availability at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Friday, March 5, 2021, during the last day of the 2021 general session of the legislature from Utah.
The announcement echoes what Cox said in a Fox News appearance on Friday: “We anticipate that by April 1, all adults in the state of Utah will be eligible for the vaccine,” said the governor, adding that he hoped Utah “would have about 1.5 million vaccines in the state until April 10, when that mandate goes away ”.
Although the mask’s statewide term ends on April 10, Napier-Pearce has pointed out that it will continue after that date in schools and for large meetings.
“In addition, companies may still require masks,” she said. “And, of course, each individual can choose to wear a mask.”
Matt Caputo, the CEO of Caputo’s Deli, said the mask’s mandate eased tensions with some customers in his business in a video he posted on social media. He urged the governor to veto the bill that ends the mask’s mandate on April 10, although lawmakers can vote to override that veto.
“Before the statewide mask mandate was put in place by Governor Herbert, our team was dealing with vitriol and negativity – like really crazy people – several times a day,” he said in the video. “It has become the most difficult part of the pandemic. And it was really exhausting and it burned a lot of people. “
He said that ending the mask’s term on April 10 “before our essential workers are fully vaccinated is absolutely outrageous.”
Caputo expressed skepticism that the vaccine will be available to all adults from April 1. And he questioned how many people could be “fully vaccinated” by April 10. (Moderna and Pfizer vaccines require two doses several weeks apart.)
He urged Cox to veto the bill to give workers “a chance to be fully vaccinated. They have been working every day during this. They are exhausted. They are tired. And many of them are afraid. “