Vaccination Available For All Employees At Legislature

The Department of Health has told the Hawaii State Legislature that all legislative employees working at the Capitol will be able to get vaccines for COVID-19 beginning Thursday.

The workers fall under the vaccination system’s Phase 1b for individuals “essential for government operations.”

Senate President Ron Kouchi said in a press release Monday that Gov. David Ige and the DOH made the category determination.

The current DOH plan for the rollout of the vaccine is in two major phases.

Capitol with a construction barrier around the first floor. — The state Capitol. Cory Lum/Civil Beat/2021

Phase 1a is health care personnel and long-term care facility residents, estimated to be 6% of Hawaii’s total population.

Phase 1b is frontline essential workers and adults 75 years of age and older, or about 20% of the population.

Phase 1c is adults age 65 to 74 years, persons 16 to 64 years with high-risk medical conditions, and essential workers not included in Phase 1b — 47% of the state’s population.

Phase 2 will cover the rest of the population, which includes all persons 16 years and older who were not in other categories.

Phase 2 is scheduled to begin in early summer 2021, depending on production and federal allocation of doses. That will cover the remaining 27% of the population.

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