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 forindividuals “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 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鈥檚 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鈥檚 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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