Hogan: Maryland to accelerate COVID-19 vaccination rollout plan

Hogan: Maryland to accelerate COVID-19 vaccination rollout plan

Gov. Larry Hogan speaks at a news conference on Thursday evening (Screenshot)

@BryanRenbaum

Maryland will move into the next substage of its coronavirus vaccination plan beginning next week, Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday evening.

The state is in Phase IA, which prioritizes nursing home residents and staff, frontline hospital workers, and first responders.

“After a thorough review today I am pleased to announce that the state of Maryland is now activating Phase 1B of the COVID-19 vaccination plan. On Monday, January 18, eligible groups will be expanded statewide to include all Marylanders 75 and over as well as anyone of any age living in assisted living or independent living facilities and developmental disabilities and behavioral health group homes,” Hogan said at a news conference at the State House in Annapolis.

Hogan added: “In addition, those now eligible in Phase 1B include: all K-12 teachers, education staff, as well as childcare providers. We have also activated Part B of the federal CVS and Walgreens partnership to now include assisted living and all other long-term care facilities.”

Hogan said the state is launching a pilot program with both WalMart and Giant so that those pharmacies can begin administering vaccines. The program will begin on January 25 and will include 22 Giants and 10 WalMarts throughout Maryland, Hogan said.

The governor said that Phase 1C of the vaccination of plan, which was expected to begin sometime in March and includes all adults between ages 65-74-will now begin on Jan. 25.

Hogan stressed that it is not necessary for health care providers to vaccinate all of the eligible people in one group before moving on to the next group.

Hogan urged Marylanders to be patient, saying that despite the good news the rollout process will still take time.

“I know that many Marylanders will be pleased to hear that we are able to accelerate our timeline and that we will be opening up more eligibility much sooner than expected. But I want to strongly caution that this will continue to be a long process. Going forward our greatest limiting factor by far will be supply. As of today, we have received approximately 547,000 doses. And this is divided up between first doses and second doses. The number of people just in Phase 1 of our plan is 1.5 million people. And they need two doses. So that’s 3 million doses that we need just to be able to vaccinate the people in Phase 1.”

There are 317,815 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Maryland as of Thursday morning, according to the Department of Health, and 6,277 people in Maryland have died from the virus. The state’s positivity rate is at 8.43%, which is well above CDC recommended guidelines for containment. Maryland has conducted almost 6.3 million COVID-19 tests.

About The Author

Bryan Renbaum

[email protected]

Reporter Bryan Renbaum served as the Capitol Hill Correspondent for Talk Media News for the past three-and-a-half years, filing print, radio and video reports on the Senate and the House of Representatives. He covered congressional reaction to the inauguration of President Donald Trump as well as the confirmation hearings of attorneys general Jeff Sessions and William Barr and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He also filed breaking news reports on the 2017 shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and three others. Previously Bryan broke multiple stories with the Baltimore Post-Examiner including sexual assault scandals at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a texting scandal on the women’s lacrosse team at that school for which he was interviewed by ABC’s “Good Morning America.” He also covered the Maryland General Assembly during the 2016 legislative session as an intern for Maryland Reporter. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from McDaniel College. If you have additional questions or comments contact Bryan at: [email protected]

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