More than 440,000 Maine people have now received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine — nearly a third of our entire population, with nearly 21 percent being fully vaccinated. 59 percent of Maine people 50 years old and older have received their first dose, with nearly 36 percent fully vaccinated.
I want to thank everyone who’s gotten vaccinated for taking this important step to protect themselves, their loved ones and our communities.
With the Federal government significantly increasing our supply of vaccines, we can now accelerate our timeframe.
Hello this is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.
Starting Wednesday, April 7th, all Maine residents age 16 and older will be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine. Of course only the Pfizer vaccine has been tested for individuals ages 16 and 17, and consent from a parent or legal guardian is required for that age group. But everyone else will be able to be vaccinated at any of the nearly two hundred vaccination sites across the state.
We should celebrate this progress. But to be clear, it will still take time to get appointments and to get shots into arms.
Some vaccine sites will accept appointments for eligible residents immediately, while others are staffing up and preparing to offer appointments in the coming days. Your continued patience is important.
To help make vaccines more accessible for everybody as we expand eligibility, we are allocating vaccines to providers in rural and hard to reach communities and we are continuing to expand the number of large-scale vaccination sites.
Our Department of Health and Human Services is allocating doses also to cancer centers and dialysis centers, to Federally Qualified Health Centers, and to other providers to prioritize people who are at higher risk from COVID-19, including people with underlying medical conditions or older Maine people, or those who live in marginalized or medically underserved places in Maine.
So far, Maine is doing pretty well getting shots into arms. Right now, we are 4th best in the nation for the percentage of population with at least one dose of a vaccine, and 7th best in the nation for the percentage of population fully vaccinated.
And despite having the oldest population of any state in the nation, older people being more at risk of serious illness or death, Maine has the third lowest number of COVID-19 cases and the fourth lowest number of COVID-19 deaths per capita in the whole country, according to the US CDC.
We’re doing well, but the pandemic is not over.
For more than a year now Maine people have cared for one another with compassion and courage, rising to the challenges of our time.
We are still in a race of the vaccinations v. the variants. And the variants are here – they are here in western Maine, they are here in southern Maine, they are spreading to every region of the state. And we see the devastating consequences in other states like Florida and Michigan. And they are more transmissible, these variants, and more dangerous. So, please, please get vaccinated and stick with the precautions that have kept us safe so far. It’s your turn. If you haven’t been vaccinated, make an appointment now.
Keep your distance from others outside your immediate family. Remind everyone to wash their hands and wear a face covering.
Doing so will help us all stay healthy, get our economy back on track and get back to normal sooner.
For information on where to get a vaccine or pre-register to know when appointments are available, or get help traveling to and from a vaccine appointment, visit: maine.gov/covid19/vaccines. If you do not have a computer or access to the internet, call our Community Vaccination Line at 1-888-445-4111.
Again, that is 1-888-445-4111.
Together, we will get through this and get our state back on track.
For those of you celebrating Easter this Sunday, Happy Easter to you all. For those who celebrate Passover, Happy Passover to you. And for everyone, happy spring.
This is Governor Janet Mills and thank you for listening.