Teachers, people 65 to 69 up next
Governor announces expansion of pool, says vaccinations will begin Feb. 8
Teachers, child-care providers and any Coloradan age 65 to 69 will be able to receive COVID-19 vaccinations beginning Feb. 8, Gov. Jared Polis announced Friday in a significant expansion of the state’s pool of people eligible to be inoculated.
He also announced another prioritization tier, for people with chronic conditions and essential workers in industries other than health care and education.
Currently only health care workers, residents of long-term care facilities, first responders and people who are 70 or older are eligible for the vaccine in Colorado. Polis asked that people in the younger group not call to set up appointments while people 70 and older are still trying to get through.
“You will get the chance to get the vaccine, if you’re 70 and up, in the next few weeks,” he said.
Once older people are vaccinated, the “crisis phase” of the pandemic will be over, because younger people are less likely to be hospitalized or die, Polis said during a news conference.
A study from researchers at the University of Colorado found that prioritizing people over 60 would save more lives than prioritizing children and teens, younger adults or all adults equally.
The state health department doesn’t have data specific for people over 65, but about 12% of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been in people between 60 and 69. People in their 70s account for 24% of coronavirus deaths, and those who are 80 or older make up 54% of the death toll.
People 65 to 69 who sign up for vaccines will be selected randomly starting Feb. 8, Polis said. They can call a local health care provider, visit CoCovidVaccine.org, or call the state hotline, 877-268-2926.
The hotline provides contact information for providers, but doesn’t add anyone to a waiting list.
“Some will get it Feb. 9; some will get it Feb. 27,” he said. “Everyone can get the vaccine, but not everyone can get it at once.”
Teachers will learn about when and how they can get vaccinated through their school dis
tricts. Classroom aides, bus drivers and other staffers in “student-facing” roles also will be eligible in this phase, as will about 100 workers essential for the continuity of state of government, Polis said. People who work exclusively in schools’ administrative offices will have to wait, as will employees of colleges.
Resuming in-person learning is important not only for students, but for parents who have struggled to find child care, Polis said. Once teachers are immunized, they won’t have to quarantine if a student tests positive, reducing disruption to the teachers’ other classes, he said.
Focus on in-person learning
The Colorado Education Association, which represents 39,000 teachers, applauded Polis’ move to accelerate teacher vaccinations, which previously had been expected to begin in March. “This is a gigantic step toward our long-standing goal of getting our students back into classrooms, where the best learning takes place,” the union said in a statement.
Colorado National Guard Brig. Gen. Scott Sherman said the state received about 81,000 doses this week, and expects to get 371,000 more by the end of February. If the state set aside all of those shots, on top of the 191,000 first doses it already has distributed, it would just cover the 562,000 people who are 70 or older.
Trying to vaccinate every person over 70 before moving onto the next group would slow distribution, though, Polis said. The state expects to be about halfway to the goal of vaccinating 70% of the population over 70 by Feb. 8, so it will expand access then, he said.
“The people who really wanted it, who signed up, are done at that point,” and it becomes more labor-intensive to find the rest, he said. “We don’t want to slow down vaccinations to reach everyone in that dwindling pool.”
Expanding vaccine access
Nancy Berlinger, a research scholar at the Hastings Center who has studied inequity in vaccination, said expanding categories too quickly could crowd out the most-vulnerable people, though. A 65-yearold person might be better able to navigate the system than a 90-year-old and get vaccinated sooner, even though the older person is at a greater risk of dying, she said.
Friday’s announcement was at least the second time the state made a significant change to its priorities.
In late December, the state announced essential workers and people 70 and older would be eligible next, and some teachers and government employees started to get shots. A week later, the guidance changed, putting most essential workers below a “dotted line” in Phase 1B.
Under that guidance, people over 60 who don’t have jobs that require them to interact with the public would have had to wait until Phase 2, which is scheduled for spring. Phase 3, the general public, will follow in the summer.
The new Phase 1 tiers are:
• Phase 1A: Frontline health care workers and residents and staff of longterm care facilities; eligible now
• Phase 1B.1: People 70 or older, first responders and moderate-risk health care workers; eligible now
• Phase 1B.2: Staff working with students in P-12 schools or child care, and people ages 65 to 69; eligibleFeb.8
• Phase 1B.3: Frontline essential workers (in industries other than education and health care), and people ages 16 to 64 with two or more chronic conditions; eligible in early March
About 288,000 people in their late 60s and 120,000 school and child-care workers are expected to become eligible in Phase 1B.2. The goal is to vaccinate 55% of them by March 5, and then open it up to the next tier, Polis said.
The new Phase 1B.3 tier includes people in industries like agriculture, manufacturing, transit and grocery stores, as well as faith leaders, people providing services directly to the homeless and some journalists who can’t work from home. If nothing changes, people who have two or more chronic conditions that raise their risk of becoming seriously ill from COVID-19 also will be able to get the shot.
The state estimates about 750,000 people are essential frontline workers, and 400,000 have two or more chronic conditions. That group could be subdivided further if vaccine shipments drop, Polis said. Some sort of proof of health status will be required for people seeking the shot because of chronic conditions, though the state hasn’t finalized how that will work.
Healthy people in their early 60s and younger people with only one chronic condition will be eligible at some point in the spring, under the current framework. Healthy people younger than 60 will have to wait until summer.
Front-line health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities were eligible to get the shot first, in Phase 1A. About 90% of eligible health workers have received both shots. All nursing homes have had one vaccine clinic, and 71% have had two, though it’s not clear what percentage of residents and staff actually received the shots.
As of Friday afternoon, 410,050 people in Colorado had received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 109,208 had received two.