States race to expand vaccine eligibility for adults

CHICAGO — Officials in at least 17 states have committed in recent days to opening coronavirus vaccine appointments to all adults in March or April, part of a fast-moving expansion as states race to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of universal eligibility by May 1.

In Ohio, all adults will be allowed to seek shots starting March 29. In Connecticut, April 5. In Alaska and Mississippi, all adults are already able to book appointments. And Thursday, officials in Illinois, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Maryland and Missouri said that all adults would be allowed in April to sign up for a shot, while Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah said universal eligibility would begin there next week.

But even as the pace of vaccinations has accelerated to about 2.5 million shots each day nationwide, the country finds itself at a precarious point in the pandemic. Cases, deaths and hospitalizations have all fallen sharply from January peaks, yet infection levels have plateaued this month, at about 55,000 new cases a day. While governors relax restrictions on businesses such as bars, indoor gyms and casinos, highly infectious variants are spreading, and some states, especially on the East Coast, have struggled for weeks to make any progress in reducing cases.

“I think it is a race against time,” said Dr. Stephen J. Thomas, SUNY Upstate Medical University’s chief of infectious disease. “Every single person that we can get vaccinated or every single person that we can get a mask on is one less opportunity that a variant has.”

As parts of the country continue to see progress, many Americans are booking spring break trips, dining in newly reopened restaurants and replanning summer weddings that were abruptly canceled in 2020.

A projection by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation suggests that coronavirus cases will continue to slowly decline in the United States in the coming months.

But there are warning signs. Vermont has struggled all of this year to curb an outbreak. Michigan, which had appeared to bring the virus under control in January, has seen case numbers increase by more than 80 percent over the past two weeks, though they remain well below their December peak. In South Florida, infection levels have remained persistently high, with about 1,000 cases reported each day in a single county, Miami-dade.

Since vaccinations began in December, the federal government has delivered more than 151 million vaccine doses, and about 77 percent have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The country is averaging about 2.5 million shots a day, compared with well under 1 million a day in early January.

As of Thursday, 66 percent of the country’s older population had received at least one vaccine dose, according to CDC data, with 39 percent fully vaccinated.

At least 23 states have said they will expand vaccine eligibility to their general population on or before May 1, the deadline that Biden set last week, and officials have spoken more openly about what life might be like when the pandemic ends.

“As more Montanans get the vaccine,” Gov. Greg Gianforte said as he announced that all Montana adults would be eligible April 1, “we will begin to approach the time when we are no longer in a state of emergency and we can remove our masks and throw them in the trash.”