AUGUSTA, Maine – Governor Janet Mills signaled on Tuesday that she would accept a new set of federal guidelines that would move older and vulnerable Mainers into the state’s coronavirus vaccination program.
The US Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday announced new guidelines that encourage states to transfer anyone aged 65 and over, as well as those with pre-existing illnesses, to a current phase largely reserved for healthcare professionals. health and those who work or live in long-term care facilities. At the same time, President Donald Trump’s administration has also promised to launch second doses of the vaccines, rather than keeping them in reserve for reinforcements.
The change in strategy was considered for weeks, and Maine health officials refused to speculate on what the state would do if it did. But Mills said in a press release on Tuesday that it was “appropriate” for the first vaccines to be for older residents and that she would be announcing updates to the plan soon.
Maine is the oldest state in the country in the Middle Ages. It also has the largest share among states of people with health problems that make them vulnerable to COVID-19. A report by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that 42.5% of Maine’s adults – 60% of those over 65 and 23% of younger adults – are at risk of serious illness if they contract the virus.
There may be logical implications for the change. Maine, like many states, prioritized health workers, long-term care facility residents and emergency medical workers for their first doses. These groups are largely being vaccinated at their workplace or home, making it easier to vaccinate them than other Maine residents who would have to make an appointment.
Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Nirav Shah, said the state will establish large community sites and mobile sites as vaccinations begin to reach the general population, but details of those plans have not yet been finalized.
Both vaccines also require refrigerated storage, although Pfizer requires deep-frozen freezers that only hospitals, some universities and the state normally own.
Maine is among the leading states in the distribution of vaccines, with only four states delivering more doses per capita. State health officials recently ordered vaccines that Walgreens, one of the two large drugstore chains responsible for the nationwide long-term care vaccination program, had no immediate plans to use them in hospitals.