Pima County Expanding Vaccine Eligibility to 70 Or Older

TUCSON, AZ — People over the age of 70 will finally be able to get the coronavirus vaccine in Pima County starting Monday, officials said Thursday.

While Arizona had previously approved the change to allow adults over the age of 65 to be eligible, Pima County had opted to continue focusing on those 75 and older due to limited dose availability.

“We have made a lot of progress over the past six weeks in the 1a and 1b priority groups, vaccinating more than 130,000 people,” Dr. Theresa Cullen, the Health Department Director said in a statement. “The pace of appointments for educators and protective services has slowed as we think we’re nearing saturation of the people in those groups who want to be vaccinated, so we’re opening appointments to 70 and older.”

Registration for the new group is starting immediately on the Pima County Health Department's vaccine website, with appointments available first thing on Monday.

Cullen said the health department did not open up eligibility even further because it doesn't want to overwhelm the registration system or run out of vaccine doses. The latest census data from 2019 reported that at least 212,000 people over the age of 65 reside in the county and 54,400 over the age of 70.

The county hopes to allow people ages 65 to 69 to get vaccinated by the end of February if the supply allows it. Arizona reduced Pima County's allotted doses from 29,000 this week to only 17,800 next week, according to Pima County Chief Medical Officer Dr. Francisco Garcia.

“Vaccine supply is the ultimate limiting factor in how many people we can get vaccinated and how quickly. We are wary of getting too far ahead of the available vaccine with our appointments,” Garcia said.

Approximately 125,168 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been given out in Pima County as of Tuesday.