Dam break.
They’re not the first states to open up eligibility to everyone 16 and over — Alaska, West Virginia, and Mississippi are already doing that — but together Texas and Georgia account for 40 million people, more than a tenth of the U.S. population. And Texas is the second-most populous state, of course, behind only California. Having a jurisdiction that large dishing out vaccines to all comers will put pressure on the 45 states that are still following priority schemes to make their doses available to all adults who want them sooner rather than later. Remember that Biden set a deadline of May 1 for states to open eligibility to the general population. I wonder if there’ll be a single state that hasn’t already done that by the end of the first week of April, say. We’ve entered a new phase of the pandemic with today’s news. Georgia will open things up to all adults on Thursday while Texas will wait until Monday. The Texas Department of State Health Services is still asking providers to prioritize appointments for people who are 80 and older, and to prioritize walk-ins from anyone in that age group who shows up without an appointment. The vaccines are not limited to Texas residents, and citizenship is not a requirement for the vaccine… The vaccine is still in short supply as the announcement makes about 22 million people eligible on Monday. The state has been allocated more than 14 million doses since distribution began in December — far short of the supply needed to fully vaccinate everyone right away… “Economics will play into this whole situation, where folks who are less able to access the resources are going to have a harder time getting it,” Prince said. “The concern I still have is how do we meet the demand in an equitable way, and right now I think we’re still struggling with that.” The five states that will soon have general eligibility for the vaccine are an interesting mix. They’re all red (well, reddish-purple in Georgia’s case), and red states may be a little more willing to part from priority schemes driven by “equity” considerations in the interest of getting people vaccinated faster.
