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AUGUSTA, Maine – Maine will expand eligibility for coronavirus vaccination to approximately 200,000 additional residents aged 60 to 69 from Wednesday and then change the prioritization to be based solely on age, Governor Janet Mills said on Friday.
Mainers aged 50 and over will be eligible in April, 40 and over in May, 30 and over in June and younger Mainers thereafter. This age-based system replaces a previous plan to prioritize adults with underlying illnesses as well as certain frontline workers after the age of 70 and over from Mainers who are currently eligible and who would be the only ones in the country to look exactly like him.
Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Friday that the shift to an age-based approach was based on data suggesting that age – even more than the serious underlying medical conditions – was the best predictor of critical illness. Ninety-eight percent of deaths from the virus in Maine are in people over the age of 50, he noted. Maine is the oldest state in the country by median age.
“We found that the data kept pointing to age as a strong indicator of death or disease severity,” Shah said.
The change would also allow the state to administer additional vaccines more quickly, citing concerns that occupation-based categories would take longer to verify, Mills said. The Democratic governor noted that vaccines could be rolled out to younger Mainers sooner if the state’s capacity continues to increase.
“This replaces the prospect of complex eligibility rules like those based on your type of job, or specific medical conditions, verification which I am very concerned will become difficult to implement and may inadvertently slow down the process.” , said Mills.
Maine will also set up specific vaccination clinics for kindergarten to grade 12 teachers, said Jeanne Lambrew, commissioner for the Department of Health and Human Services. But there is no priority otherwise for teachers or other new professions. They can only be vaccinated if they are eligible by age.
The move to an age-based system sets Maine apart. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health research organization, no other state has gone to a single state after immunizing nursing home residents and some essential workers. California announced a switch to an age-based system in late January, but backtracked, allowing adults with certain health conditions to be vaccinated alongside the elderly, CalMatters reported.
However, some states have adopted similar approaches. Connecticut primarily uses age-based criteria, Governor Ned Lamont announced last week, but also vaccinates K-12 teachers and educators. Rhode Island does not prioritize frontline workers other than healthcare workers and first responders, but plans to vaccinate adults with certain pre-existing conditions after vaccinating people aged 60 and over.
Mills acknowledged that Maine’s plan differs from other states, but argued that the approach “will benefit most of those named earlier” given the state’s older population. Maine has the oldest median age of any U.S. state, about seven years older than the nationwide median age.
But the change will also put younger people with serious health conditions at a disadvantage, who may have to wait longer than they should have under the state’s previous plan. Kim Moody, executive director of Disability Rights Maine, said he was disappointed with the change and had heard from many parents on Friday afternoon who were “so upset” by the change.
“People with disabilities and parents of severely disabled children really hoped to receive the vaccine and thus be able to enter society in an inclusive manner, and now they are learning that they still have several months.” she said.
The shift in prioritization comes a day after the state announced a substantial increase in its weekly vaccine allocation by the federal government, and as US regulators consider approving a new single-injection vaccine from Johnson & Johnson that could speed up the process.
As of Friday, more than 217,000 Mainers had received the first doses of the vaccine, while 110,000 had received second doses. The state’s initial deployment targeted residents of nursing homes, healthcare workers, first responders and some other workers considered critical to the state’s viral response. Maine extended vaccinations to residents aged 70 and over in mid-January and has now vaccinated more than 60% of people over that age, Mills noted on Friday.
Northern Light Health, based in Bangor, the state’s second-largest health system, was already offering meet up with Mainers aged 60 and over Friday afternoon.
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