Minnesota Refines Future COVID Vaccine Eligibility Groups, Touts Success in Long-Term Care Facilities

Minnesota Department of Health

(KNSI) – The Minnesota Department of Health has refined its COVID-19 vaccine eligibility timeline for the spring and summer, grouping populations into the phases and tiers that were laid out at the onset of the state’s vaccine rollout in late 2020.

According to the MDH framework published Tuesday, the state is in phase 1B, tier 1 for vaccine distribution: people 65 and older, school staff and child care workers.

Minnesotans in the next tier, which includes people with certain underlying health conditions and food processing plant workers, will be added to the vaccine eligibility pool once 70 percent of the state’s seniors are vaccinated. MDH Commissioner Jan Malcolm says that is projected to happen at the end of March.

“We won’t be in a position to move on to the next phases for several weeks yet, but we will be providing more information to everyone as we get closer to that time,” Malcolm said.

Malcolm said Type 1 diabetes has been added to the list of underlying medical conditions included in phase 1B, tiers 3 and 4. Judicial system workers and public health workers have also been added to the list of essential workers who will become eligible for vaccination in tier 3, which is expected to happen in late spring.

“We have to keep going with this phased and targeted approach to make sure we are protecting the most vulnerable first,” Malcolm said. “We’re making good progress in that effort, and we are pleased that we have a view into increasing supplies coming from the federal government.”

Gov. Tim Walz on Thursday announced the state’s latest roadmap for COVID-19 vaccinations, projecting that general availability of vaccines will occur in summer 2021.

As Minnesota plans for future eligibility groups, vaccinations for people in the state’s very first priority populations are still ongoing. Since December, the state has made good progress for those in phase 1A, like long-term care residents and staff.

“Currently, 84 percent of nursing home residents and 89 percent of assisted living residents have received their first dose,” says Lindsey Krueger, director of MDH’s Office of Health Facility Complaints. “Sixty-nine percent of nursing home residents and 63 percent of assisted living residents have received their second dose.”

Those vaccinations plus mitigation efforts led by staff at those long-term care facilities has resulted in new COVID-19 cases plummeting among residents, Krueger said, “reaching low points not seen since the early weeks of the pandemic.”

While the state government’s current timeline places the general availability for COVID-19 vaccines in late June or July, President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that the U.S. would have enough vaccine supply to vaccinate every adult by the end of May, the Associated Press reports.

The emergence of the newly approved Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine could help speed up the vaccination effort around the country and in Minnesota.

“We view Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine as a game changer that will help us quickly provide immunity to even more Minnesotans,” state infectious disease director Kris Ehresmann said.

Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which require two doses for full effectiveness, the Johnson & Johnson iteration is a one-dose vaccine.

More than 908,000 Minnesotans have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose as of Saturday, representing 16.3 percent of the state’s population. The senior population is 53 percent vaccinated against COVID-19.