Name: California says everyone 16 and older will be eligible for COVID vaccination starting April 15
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California says everyone 16 and older will be eligible for COVID vaccination starting April 15

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateAll Californians 50 and older will be eligible for coronavirus vaccination on April 1, and everyone age 16 and up can get their shots starting April 15, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday.The move marks the latest and most dramatic expansion of the vaccination campaign in the nation’s most populous state, which until now had made vaccines available incrementally, largely based on residents’ age, job or underlying medical conditions. The April 15 target date for so-called vaccination open season is sooner than the projected timeline Newsom gave last week, when he predicted California would take the expansion step by the final week of April.In “just a few weeks, there will be no rules, no limitations to the ability to get a vaccine administered,” Newsom said Thursday. “I hope this is coming as positive news for those that have been waiting their turn.”Effective immediately, vaccinators also can give shots to family members who take eligible relatives to get vaccinated. Those family members do not have to meet age or other eligibility requirements and will be vaccinated “no questions asked,” Newsom said. This only applies to people in lower-income areas, defined as Quartile 1 or 2 in each county, according to the state. This change aims to give community clinics and public hospitals leeway to vaccinate households in areas that have the highest levels of virus. It is up to each provider how to handle the logistics, such as whether additional family members have to make appointments as well, and whether there will be a limit to how many people in each household can be vaccinated at that time.California’s planned expansion comes on the heels of many other states, including New York earlier this week, that have extended vaccination to people 50 and older. Three states, Alaska, Mississippi and West Virginia, recently made everyone 16 and over eligible for shots.Coronavirus ResourcesSixteen is the cutoff age for the three vaccines that have been authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The thinking behind prioritizing 50-and-older residents ahead of younger people is that the risk of becoming severely ill or dying from COVID-19 goes up with age.The groups that are currently eligible in California are those 65 and older, people 16 to 64 with disabilities or underlying health conditions, and people who work in certain essential jobs including health care, education, food and agriculture, and public transit. Homeless and incarcerated individuals are also eligible, as are people who live in long-term care facilities.Even with expanded eligibility coming soon, appointments may not be available right away. Vaccine supply is expected to increase significantly, from 1.8 million doses a week now to 2.5 million doses in the coming weeks and 3 million doses in May, Newsom said.Opening up vaccinations to all comers will likely lead to surge in demand, as there are nearly 26 million Californians between 16 and 64 who will be eligible April 15, according to state estimates. Of those, 7.2 million are between 50 and 64. The extent of new pressure on the vaccination system, however, is unclear because many of those people overlap with groups that are already eligible, like essential workers and people with underlying health conditions.The increased demand among younger residents may be partially offset by decreased demand from older residents who, in many parts of the Bay Area, are already vaccinated at very high rates. In Contra Costa County, for instance, 97% of people 75 and older and 80% of people 65 to 74 are at least partially vaccinated, according to county data. The county also has made major progress in vaccinating younger groups who have been eligible because of their jobs or underlying medical conditions: 41% of people 60 to 64 and 33% of people 50 to 59 have received at least one dose, with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines requiring a second for full vaccination.Bay Area health officials have for months cited supply shortages as the main thing holding them back from inoculating many more people. They say they have the infrastructure in place to beef up numbers if they get the vaccine from federal and state officials. Some counties say supply is still unreliable and often does not meet demand.Santa Clara County officials are worried they may not be able right away to accommodate their 400,000 residents between ages 50 and 64.Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.“We are concerned beginning next week, on April 1, when we add that additional 400,000 people, that we don’t have the vaccine,” Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, the county’s vaccine officer, said Thursday. “We really want to caution people to please continue to be patient. We are being told by the federal government and the state that vaccine will be flowing a little bit better in the month of April.”The announcement on expanded vaccination came as Santa Clara County health officials announced Thursday they have identified a coronavirus case caused by the P.1 variant, which is partially resistant to antibodies and has been fueling a deadly surge in Brazil. The discovery, the sixth P.1 case reported in California, and the first in the Bay Area, underscored the need to vaccinate people as quickly as possible, in part to prevent further mutations.Several California counties, including Solano and Contra Costa in the Bay Area, have already jumped ahead of the state and expanded eligibility to people 50 and older. Solano did so last week, and Contra Costa announced the change Monday.Since Contra Costa County included those as young as 50, demand for vaccine appointments has increased, though how much is not clear, said Ben Drew, a spokesperson for John Muir Health, a major vaccinator in the county.“Since pushing out appointments to the 50 to 64 age group, we have seen our appointment slots fill up quickly,” he said. “Demand has definitely increased, but it’s hard to say by how much since we only push out appointments based on our supply allocations.”Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: Twitter:Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateAll Californians 50 and older will be eligible for coronavirus vaccination on April 1, and everyone age 16 and up can get their shots starting April 15, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday.The move marks the latest and most dramatic expansion of the vaccination campaign in the nation’s most populous state, which until now had made vaccines available incrementally, largely based on residents’ age, job or underlying medical conditions. The April 15 target date for so-called vaccination open season is sooner than the projected...

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Health care reporter at @SFChronicle. Currently covering COVID-19 and vaccines.

Catherine Ho

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California says everyone 16 and older will be eligible for COVID vaccination starting April 15

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