Humboldt County expanding Covid-19 vaccine eligibility for everyone 16 and older April 15th

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HUMBOLDT COUNTY, Calif. (KIEM) — More people are set to become eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine here in Humboldt County. That’s happening April 1st for people 50 years old and older and April 15th for everyone 16 years old and older.

“I think what we’re going to see is the same as what we’ve seen all along, which is that whenever we open up a new eligibility tier there is unlikely to be enough vaccine for everyone in that tier to get vaccinated right away,” according to County Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman.

This is different than in the past when the County delayed opening up more eligibility groups because of the limited availability of vaccines.

“For being a rural county, we had a large health care population and so it took us longer to get through that than some other counties that had a very small healthcare population. We had a very large education population and it took a while to get through that,” Hoffman adds.

Supply is still an issue as far as how quickly providers can get shots into arms. According to Dr. Hoffman, the state and federal governments are planning on increasing allocations in the coming weeks as eligibility expands.

“The federal government is projecting that the vaccine supply will double in the next four to six weeks. That’s a pretty huge increase…I think that is really a major part of why the state and federal governments are pushing for this open eligibility for everyone, just expecting that we will have a lot more vaccine in the coming month.”

More information on vaccines can be found on the County’s website www.humboldtgov.org.