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AUGUSTA, Maine -- January 21, 2020 -- Gov. Janet Mills delivers her State of the State address in Augusta on Jan. 21. The governor will be releasing a series of provisions allowing towns and schools to operate on their existing budgets in the event town meetings are delayed due to the coronavirus. (Natalie Williams | BDN)
AUGUSTA, Maine -- January 21, 2020 -- Gov. Janet Mills delivers her State of the State address in Augusta on Jan. 21. The governor will be releasing a series of provisions allowing towns and schools to operate on their existing budgets in the event town meetings are delayed due to the coronavirus. (Natalie Williams | BDN)

All Mainers age 16 and older to be eligible for COVID-19 vaccines in mid-April

Contributed • March 19, 2021

By Caitlin Andrews, Bangor Daily News Staff

Gov. Janet Mills said all Mainers age 16 and older will be eligible for coronavirus vaccines on April 19, moving up the state’s coronavirus vaccine timeline on Friday by roughly two weeks.

The move came just after the neighboring states of Massachusetts and Vermont said they would open up vaccines to that wide age category on the same day. States are expanding eligibility further as they expect a surge of doses next month from the federal government.

“We will continue to work with vaccine providers across Maine to expand our ability to deliver shots, and we are pleased that we are able to take this important step forward,” Mills said in a statement.

Mills also announced that Mainers over 50 will be able to be vaccinated starting next Tuesday, just over a week after they were originally expected to be eligible for vaccinations on April 1 under the state’s age-based plan, which does not take underlying conditions into account, breaking from the policies in virtually all other states.

Maine has fully vaccinated nearly 16 percent of its population to date. Vaccine allocations have been partially buoyed by the emergency approval of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, even though allocations have yet to meet their promised demand. New COVID-19 cases have also been increasing in the state, despite the sped-up vaccine rollout.

Only one other state — Alaska — is offering shots to everyone 16 and older now. More than a dozen other states are offering them to people 16 and older who have underlying conditions making them vulnerable to the virus, according to Becker’s Hospital Review. New Hampshire will open vaccines to people 16 and older within weeks, the Associated Press reported. Maine has been steadily loosening its eligibility restrictions in recent weeks. The state’s previous timetable for the general public to be vaccinated was May 1 after President Joe Biden ordered states to speed up their timelines. It replaced a program that weighed health conditions and employment and switched to a solely age-based system in late February.

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