Indiana plans to expand COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to anyone 16 and older next Wednesday, but it might take a while before they actually get the vaccine. The increase in eligible Hoosiers will likely exceed the increase in available doses next week, but State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box says she expects the state to have enough vaccine for everyone who wants it by May.
“Will our wait times, as far as, will it take, rather than one week or two weeks or three weeks, maybe it would be six weeks? That is quite possible,” Box said during Wednesday’s press conference. “But again, that is why we have gotten our most vulnerable populations, our older population and our co-morbidities in first, so that we know if we are waiting a little bit longer, that that’ll be alright.”
Box noted that 16- and 17-year-olds will only be eligible for the Pfizer vaccine, and they’ll have to have a consent form signed by a parent or guardian.
Governor Holcomb said the state is trying to remove any excuse or justification for not getting the vaccine.
Box said health officials are keeping an eye on vaccine uptake maps. “And we can see that in some of our rural areas, we don’t have as good of uptake,” she said. “We can see this in some of our areas with higher social vulnerability index. So that could be lower socioeconomic, minority populations. And sometimes, a part of that is vaccine hesitancy. Sometimes, that’s access issues.”
She said in one section of Lake County, the solution involved sending a mass text message, letting people know that a vaccination clinic was available in their community.
For those concerned about the vaccine’s potential effect on their body, Box stressed that it never gets close to the DNA in a person’s cells. “It only goes into the cytoplasm and works on a part of the cytoplasm called the ribosomes to make it make a protein that your body sees as foreign, and then your immune system gets fired up and makes antibodies and responds to that,” Box explained. “So there is no changing of your DNA. There’s nothing permanently inserted into your cells. And I understand that that’s a concern for people, but the science behind that does not support that.”
Box said she isn’t aiming for any specific number for achieving herd immunity but wants as many people to get the shot as possible.
