Update: D.C. Health will open COVID-19 vaccine appointments to residents with qualifying medical conditions starting tomorrow — five days earlier than anticipated.

At 9 a.m. on Thursday, 4,350 vaccine appointments will be available in priority zip codes to residents ages 65 and older, health care workers, or residents between the ages of 18-64 with qualifying health conditions. This week, the priority zip codes focus on neighborhoods in wards 5,7, and 8.

On Friday at 9 a.m., 4,350 additional appointments will be available for qualified residents in all wards.

On Monday, March 1 (the day the city originally expected to begin vaccinating residents with certain medical conditions), vaccination appointments will open for residents over 16 with qualifying health conditions. According to statement from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Children’s National Hospital will be leading vaccinations for 16 and 17-year-olds, and will be providing more information on scheduling appointments next week.

Original:

D.C. will open up vaccine access on March 1 to a broad swath of residents ages 16 to 64 who have certain qualifying medical conditions, DC Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt said during a press conference on Thursday.

People will be asked to “self-attest” to those medical conditions when they register for vaccine appointments on DC Health’s website or with other medical providers, which means residents won’t need to have documentation from a healthcare provider in order to register.

Nesbitt said her agency came up with the list of 20 categories of qualifying medical conditions after doing a literature review, consulting CDC guidance, and meeting with its scientific advisory committee. Nesbitt estimates that 160,000 residents would be eligible because of their medical conditions, though that number could include seniors and other essential workers who have already been vaccinated.

Nesbitt also said there will be no prioritization within the category of eligible residents based on their age or which medical conditions they have; all people in the eligible categories will become eligible at once.

“It is for individuals 16 to 64, and it is for all of the qualifying medical conditions as written,” Nesbitt said.

Those with the following medical conditions will be eligible to receive the vaccine on March 1:

• Asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and other chronic lung disease
• Bone marrow and solid organ transplantation
• Cancer
• Cerebrovascular Disease
• Chronic Kidney Disease
• Congenital Heart Disease
• Diabetes Mellitus
• Heart conditions such as heart failure, coronary artery disease, or cardiomyopathies
• HIV
• Hypertension
• Immunocompromised state
• Inherited metabolic disorders
• Intellectual and developmental disabilities
• Liver disease
• Neurologic conditions
• Obesity: BMI more than 30
• Pregnancy
• Severe genetic disorders
• Sickle cell disease
• Thalassemia

The list includes changes to previous guidance from DC Health. Previously, as the Washington Post reported, DC Health planned to include smokers and people with a BMI greater than 25. More than half of adults in D.C. would have qualified under that scheme—which led some experts to question whether the District’s vaccine program would be able to handle such a sudden influx of eligible residents.

People with BMIs between 25 and 30 were absent from the list of qualifying medical conditions DC Health released Thursday. Nesbitt explained their removal by saying that she believed including people with a BMI greater than 30 would still help DC Health get vaccines to the poorer and majority-Black wards that have been most affected by coronavirus deaths—which was the original intent of prioritizing people based on weight.

“Obesity tends to be more prevalent … in some of those communities,” Nesbitt said on Thursday.

Nesbitt also said it was her expectation that as DC Health expands vaccine eligibility, hospitals and other health centers providing vaccines to their patients will also expand their eligibility.

The announcement comes on the same day that D.C. expanded vaccine eligibility to grocery store workers, social service outreach workers, manufacturing workers, and food packaging workers—and as the District has hit some snags in trying to secure additional vaccines for the region’s large federal workforce.

D.C. officials said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has not responded to the request from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, and Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam that it take on the responsibility of vaccinating federal workers, including mass transit workers and postal workers, and that they believe the request won’t be approved.

Though there have been some signs of improved availability over the past week—last Thursday, for example, was the first time DC Health still had available appointments for eligible seniors in certain zip codes into the afternoon—vaccine supply remains a central issue for D.C. and the rest of the region. Last week, DC Health’s Friday appointments for seniors and health care workers were booked in less than 15 minutes.

It’s unclear how easy or difficult it will be for newly eligible residents to secure appointments in March once they become available to many more people. DC Health officials have also said they will be revamping their vaccine registration process in March to make it more equitable and notify cohorts of pre-registered residents when an appointment has become available for them.

Racial and geographic equity has emerged and persisted as another dominant problem during the vaccine rollout. More than 50% of seniors in the majority-white and more affluent Ward 3 have received their first dose of the vaccine. But in majority-Black Ward 8, where more residents have died from the coronavirus than in any other ward, less than 22% of seniors have received their first dose.

As the vaccine rollout continues in D.C., Nesbitt said there was reason to be “cautiously optimistic” about a recent decline in the seven-day average of new coronavirus cases in the District.

“We have the opportunity to really take advantage of these downwards trends that we’re seeing … and a vaccination program for COVID-19 that is picking up pace,” said Nesbitt.

However, Nesbitt added, D.C.’s seven-day average of new daily cases is still as high as it was in November—a number that indicates “substantial community spread” of the virus.

And, Nesbitt added, officials are not yet sure about the potential effects of new and more contagious variants of the virus.