As the U.S. supply of COVID-19 vaccines continues to grow and states plan to meet or defeat President Joe Biden’s April 19 deadline for expanding suitability for all adults, some states have one of the last obstacles to drop access to vaccines: rules of residence.
New Hampshire and Oklahoma are the latest states to announce that they are eligible for non-resident vaccination. Experts hope that more will follow soon, as the production and distribution of vaccines increases.
The United States releases about 3.1 million shots a day, an increase of about 2 million in early March. The pressure remains urgent as dangerous variants of the coronavirus circulate and the country reports a sharp increase in new cases, averaging nearly 68,000 a day over the past week, according to a New York Times database.
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In New Hampshire, Republican Chris Sununu, a Republican, said Wednesday that officials are confident that by April 19 there will be enough shots to vaccinate residents outside the state, the deadline set by Biden for universal eligibility for adults, who already declare 50. , Washington, DC and Puerto Rico said they will meet. Sununu said New Hampshire’s deadline was “far ahead” after all state residents aged 16 or older were eligible for a vaccine on April 2.
The change came after Sununu received criticism from students and Democratic lawmakers for not allowing out-of-college students in New Hampshire to be vaccinated. He said this month that residents “should come first” and that university students have a lower risk compared to older people.
In addition to university students, movements such as those in New Hampshire make it easier to vaccinate other people with floating residence statuses, such as those who go to work across state borders, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.
This is especially relevant for places like Kansas City, Missouri – which lies on the edge of Missouri and borders Kansas – or metropolitan areas like New York, Philadelphia or Chicago whose suburbs extend to neighboring states. Hotez said he expects and hopes more states will lift these restrictions soon.
“Since we have more vaccines, I think we need to liberalize restrictions as much as possible,” he said, adding: “Remember how it works. The virus does not recognize state borders. ”
About 49% of New Hampshire’s population of about 1.4 million received at least one shot, according to the New York Times vaccine detection, the highest share from any state.
Oklahoma began Thursday to allow foreign residents to be vaccinated in the state, nearly two weeks after it is eligible for all residents 16 years or older.
About 35% of Oklahoma’s population received at least one shot.
More than half of the states and the District of Columbia still have residency requirements for vaccination, although most allow exceptions for workers working in the state who live in another, according to a vaccine from the Kaiser Family Foundation, an organization without for-profit focus focused on national health. issues.
Jennifer Kates, a senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said more states are likely to open vaccinations to everyone.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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