Beshear: Any fully vaccinated adult in KY now eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine booster
Any fully vaccinated adult living or working in Kentucky is now eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine booster, Gov. Andy Beshear announced Wednesday.
After signaling earlier this week that he would seek to broaden eligibility, the governor on Wednesday signed an executive order to that end. Adults 18 and older who received the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at least six months ago, or adults who got the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine at least two months ago are now free to sign up for a third dose, the governor’s office said.
Previously, only people age 65 and older, those working in high-risk jobs, and people living with certain underlying health conditions qualified for the third dose.
“Folks, you really need to get vaccinated and get this booster, and now it should be fairly easy,” Beshear said in a statement.
Though the virus is much less pervasive in Kentucky than even a month ago, some of that progress has stalled, even reversed course. After two months of steep drops in new cases and the statewide positivity rate, both metrics are now plateaued. Last week, for the first time in two months, the state’s weekly case total increased over the previous week’s. And on Tuesday, the rate of Kentuckians testing positive had reached a monthly high of 5.73% — a rate that still leaves room for significant spread of infection, especially during the colder months.
What’s more, holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas “unfortunately are especially risky for COVID-19 being able to spread,” Beshear said. “Because of that, it’s more important than ever that we get people vaccinated and get people their boosters to push their immunity up to the highest levels.”
In Kentucky, 59% of the total state population is at least partially vaccinated, and more than 473,000 residents have received a booster.
At least six other states have so far taken similar steps to expand booster eligibility, Beshear said, including Maine, Arkansas, West Virginia, California, Colorado, and New Mexico.
This story was originally published November 17, 2021 at 1:39 PM.
