Editor’s note: The Salt Lake Tribune is providing free access to critical coronavirus stories. Sign up for our main news newsletter, sent to your inbox every morning of the week. To support journalism like this, please donate or become one subscriber.
Utahns aged 50 and over can start making appointments to receive the COVID-19 vaccines on Monday, Governor Spencer Cox announced on Thursday.
He also said that Utahns younger adults with certain health conditions can get the vaccine. These new qualifying conditions are diabetes, type 1 or type 2, obesity with a BMI index of 30 or higher, and anyone with chronic kidney disease.
Cox made the announcement at his weekly media briefing on COVID-19, broadcast on Utah Live from the Utah Capitol.
“This is a big addition to eligibility,” said Cox. “Which means it won’t be possible for everyone in those areas to get an appointment right away,” he added. People “will have to be patient, they will have to keep checking”.
He asked newly eligible Utahns to wait until Monday to make appointments.
In April, Cox said, the state hopes to be able to open vaccination for all adults in Utah, “assuming everything goes according to plan.”
The news comes a day after Utah hospitals began receiving shipments of the Johnson & Johnson single injection vaccine, which the Food and Drug Administration approved for emergency use on Saturday.
Prior to Thursday, Utahns aged 65 and over were eligible to receive the vaccine, along with people over the age of 18 with certain serious or chronic medical conditions, health professionals, first responders, teachers and residents and employees of health care institutions. Long term.
Cox announced that six counties – Cache, Davis, Grand, Salt Lake, Sanpete and Wasatch – will move to the state’s “moderate” broadcast categories. They join seven other counties that were previously in the “moderate” category.
“There are no restrictions on ‘moderate’ meetings,” said Cox, “as long as they wear masks.”
Cox also said he wanted to “reflect on the fact that we have lost almost 2,000 Utahns to this insidious disease”.
Cox said he asked state epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn a year ago how far the pandemic could worsen. The worst case scenario, Dunn told Cox, was 20,000 Utahns dying from COVID-19; the best the state could hope for was 2,000 deaths.
“We are very grateful and excited to be in the best scenario for this,” said Cox.
Dunn urged Utahns to accept any of the three vaccines offered, while seeking consultations. “The best vaccine you can get is the one you can get first, regardless of the manufacturer,” she said.
This story is developing and will be updated.