There’s still no word on when teachers may become eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. Indiana is using an age-based approach to the vaccine rollout, with the only exceptions being health care workers, first responders, and now individuals with specific medical conditions.
Governor Holcomb defended those decisions during Wednesday’s press conference with State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box. “The professions don’t put you in a higher risk, as the information that you’ve supplied me,” Holcomb said. “It’s actually the age and your co-morbidities, so we’ll continue to go down that path.”
Dr. Box stressed that the goal is to save lives. “Individuals who are 50 to 64 are 30 times more likely to die of COVID-19,” she said. “I mean, it’s not just that they are a certain age group.”
Holcomb also felt that when more vaccine becomes available, there are other frontline workers who should get it, too, not just teachers. “Yeah, we’re trying to get to as many people as we can, be it teachers, be it the person that works at the truck stop on I-70 that has a lot of transient customers come in and out from all over the country and little control over certain actions of others that are only there temporarily, or the folks that work in our grocery stores that are seeing a high turnover and volume of customers coming right in front of them,” Holcomb said. “You know, they’re masked up. They’re doing all the right things.”
Next in line to get the vaccine are Hoosiers 50 and older, as well as those over the age of 16 with certain co-morbidities.
