Oregon Restaurant and Grocery Workers Will Be Eligible for the COVID-19 Vaccine April 5

The state has accelerated its vaccine timeline once again, which is good news for restaurant and grocery workers: All Oregon frontline workers, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine on April 5.

On March 19, the governor announced that people in group 7 of phase 1b — which includes frontline workers like grocery and restaurant workers, adults 16 to 44 with one or more underlying health conditions, and people 50 years or older living in a multigenerational household — would be eligible for the vaccine “no later than April 19.” Technically, that’s still true: The state announced in a press release that this population will be eligible for the vaccine on April 5, a full two weeks before that deadline. Farmworkers and food processing workers statewide will be eligible March 29, as scheduled.

This announcement comes days after news broke that All4Oregon invited around 11,000 people to schedule vaccine appointments, even though they weren’t actually eligible until April 19. All4Oregon, the vaccine site at the Oregon Convention Center, sent out the invitations based on information “erroneously” provided by Oregon Health Authority, which the OHA says was due to a glitch. The state is honoring those scheduled appointments.

More than 1 million Oregonians have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine so far. Almost 450,000 Oregonians are fully vaccinated. Those looking to schedule a vaccine appointment can find more information via the state’s vaccine finder site.

• Find a Vaccine [Official]
• Oregon vaccine administration data [Official]
• Oregon Grocery and Restaurant Workers Will Be Eligible for the COVID-19 Vaccine No Later Than April 19 [EPDX]
• Oregon mistakenly invites 11,000 people to schedule COVID vaccine appointments [KGW]
• Oregon officials blame ‘glitch’ after offering 11,000 vaccine appointments ahead of schedule [OPB]