More vaccine, expanded eligibility and fewer COVID limits coming soon to Hoosiers
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — More COVID-19 vaccine is coming soon to Indiana, which means eligibility will soon expand for Hoosiers.
Gov. Eric Holcomb announced Wednesday that the state is getting an extra 13,000 doses a week. That will bring the weekly total to more than 90,000 doses of vaccines for Hoosiers every week.
Over the next three weeks that’s a 16% increase from what state health officials have been dealing with recently.
Indiana leaders cautioned those added doses will get spread out across the state, so the immediate effect may not be obvious. However, they hope to open up the eligibility for people ages 65 to 69 within days … or basically as soon as they can reschedule appointments for about 4,500 people in 70s or older who are already booked into March but now can get in earlier.
“I’ll tell you that 13,000 over the course of 92 counties gets spread thin as you might imagine. We have a very orderly process set up,” Holcomb said. “This is working. I realize when we first opened this up and we had a couple hundred thousand people calling, the wait was longer. Now, this is under control.”
The other big news Wednesday was that coronavirus restrictions will be loosening around the state.
While social gatherings and event sizes had been from 25 to 250 people based on the a county’s color based a metrics, as of Monday, that will be 25% for red or orange counties, 50% for yellow, and 100% for blue. However, no matter the color, mask and social distancing requirements will remain in effect.
Holcomb showed Wednesday that county metrics map that had been dominated by red is now mostly orange with eight yellow counties Wednesday. It does take back-to-back weeks of improved color to move into a less-restrictive level.
The Republican governor intends to sign on Sunday a new executive order with the new coronavirus limitations that will last through February.
Indiana State Department of Health on Wednesday reported 40 more COVID-19 deaths, bringing the total to 9,470. A total of 617,176 Hoosiers have tested positive for COVID-19.