Indiana Opens COVID Vaccinations to Everyone 60 and Over
Good news if you're a Hoosier 60 years of age and older! You are now eligible to get yourself scheduled for a COVID vaccine and start the journey to a return to some form of normalcy.
The Indiana Department of Health announced the expansion to the new age group Tuesday morning on social media, as well as through the state's coronavirus website.
As noted in the announcement, you can register for your vaccine through the Department's website, ourshot.in.gov, or by calling 211.
After a sizable spike in cases after the holidays that saw nearly every county in the state turn red on the Department's coronavirus tracking website, including all counties in our part of the state, the numbers have been consistently trending downward to the point where there are no red counties on the map as of this writing (Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021). There are even several that have turned blue, including Pike County, meaning the number of positive cases, and the overall positivity rate has consistently stayed low for the past several days.
This is no doubt thanks to the vaccine, and Hoosiers doing their part by continuing to wear masks, practicing proper social distancing, and limiting their exposure to others. To date, over 890,000 residents have received their first dose of the vaccine while just over 440,000 have been fully vaccinated.
In Vanderburgh County, nearly 33,000 residents have been given their first dose, while just over 22,000 have been fully vaccinated. You can track the state's vaccine rollout by county through the Department of Health's Vaccination Dashboard.
The question now becomes when will the rest of us get our turn? The answer to that question isn't so simple. The Department's coronavirus site simply says, "additional phases of vaccine administration is yet to be determined," as a number of factors have to be weighed before officials are ready to move on to the next group including the number of vaccines the state receives, how many each county gets, and the number of people in the current age group elect to get it.
I know I'm ready to sign up as soon as I get the green light. But, as a 44-year-old with no underlying health conditions, I assume my turn is still a few months away.
[Source: Indiana Department of Health on Twitter]
KEEP READING: Answers to 30 common COVID-19 vaccine questions
While much is still unknown about the coronavirus and the future, what is known is that the currently available vaccines have gone through all three trial phases and are safe and effective. It will be necessary for as many Americans as possible to be vaccinated in order to finally return to some level of pre-pandemic normalcy, and hopefully these 30 answers provided here will help readers get vaccinated as soon they are able.
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