Gov. Spencer Cox announced at his Thursday news conference that all Utah residents age 18 and older will be eligible to receive the vaccine on Wednesday. The Pfizer vaccine will also be available for those ages 16-18. This is earlier than the previously planned April 1st date.
“This is a significant movement in timing. It also means there will not be a vaccine available for everyone in the state next week," Cox said. "I want to be very clear about that. It may take a few weeks for you to be able to schedule an opportunity to get vaccinated.”
The timing comes at the request of local health departments, as well as the state health department.
“We’re concerned about the equity piece in hard to reach populations in rural places, frontier areas of our state, and in some of our multicultural communities where we’ve seen lower uptake and getting those doses out," Cox said. "And the way to do that is that when we go into those places, we want to be able to vaccinate everyone.”
He also announced Utah’s seven day rolling average for new COVID-19 cases is the lowest it has been since Sept. 13 with under 500 cases. As of Thursday, 1,080,039 doses had been administered in the state.
Apart from news related to vaccinations, Cox urged Utah residents to start conserving water as the fall season was one of the driest on record and the state is starting at a deficit.
Cox said 100% of Utah is in a drought right now, with 90% being in extreme drought. He says any effort to conserve water will go a long way.
