Starting Tuesday, all Pennsylvania residents 16 and older will be eligible to sign up for a COVID-19 vaccine. The expansion of eligibility, which does not include Philadelphia, is taking place almost a week earlier than originally planned.
Philadelphia, which operates on its own timeline and receives its vaccines from the federal government, will open up registration to all adults next Monday, April 19.
According to Gov. Wolf to keep the speed of the vaccination process is crucial. “We need to maintain acceleration of the vaccine rollout, especially as case counts and hospitalization rates have increased,” Wolf said. “Therefore, just as President Biden has brought forward universal adult access to vaccines from May 1 to April 19, we are moving Pennsylvania’s timeline of universal adult access to April 13.”
As reported by 6abc Action News, Pennsylvania had previously expanded their respective COVID-19 vaccination eligibility lists to Phase 1C starting Monday. With the change in eligibility, those residents in Phase 2 will become eligible on Tuesday, opening up vaccines to all.
🆕 @GovernorTomWolf and the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force announced that effective tomorrow, Tuesday, April 13, all Pennsylvania adults will be eligible to schedule an appointment for the COVID-19 vaccine.
ℹ️ More information: https://t.co/ZdsWsAbu56 pic.twitter.com/7fhZ1J84FA
— PA Department of Health (@PAHealthDept) April 12, 2021
Those residents eligible for an appointment can access the state health department’s provider map.
Philadelphia also moved into phase 1c on Monday, April 12. The city previously announced it would move to Phase 2 of its COVID-19 vaccine roll-out on Monday, April 19, but there was no immediate word if the city would bump up the date.
You can read: COVID-19 vaccine eligibility expands in New Jersey
Phase 1c in Philly began last Monday, April 5, but was only open to a small subset of four groups within 1c: Sanitation workers, maintenance and janitorial staff, utility workers and postal and package delivery workers. That limitation has now ended as vaccinations are open to all groups within 1c.
The following groups have now been added to Philadelphia Phase 1c as of Monday: People receiving home and community-based services as defined by the PA Dept of Human Services, landscaping workers, government workers, elections workers, social services workers and unpaid caregivers of medically vulnerable people.
Eligible workers
In addition to the current and newly added groups, workers who cannot work remotely in the following industries are now eligible:
- Higher education staff
- Finance: public facing, non-remote positions in the finance industry
- Transportation workers such as airport and train workers and taxi or rideshare drivers
- Construction workers
- IT & telecommunications workers
- Members of the press
- Legal industry
- Public health workers
Philadelphia residents in groups that were categorized in Phases 1a and 1b also remain eligible to receive vaccinations.
Residents are encouraged to register using the city’s COVID-19 Vaccine Interest Form.
Latinx Newswire
