PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island will drop its residency requirement for vaccines as of May 17, in an effort to reach tourists who will start to arrive for the summer season within weeks.
Gov. Daniel J. McKee announced the new policy at the weekly COVID-19 update Thursday.
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“We know we are a tourist destination. We know communities bordering our oceanfront are going to have many, many people come,” he said. Westerly alone grows from 25,000 to 65,000 each summer, he noted. “We want to make sure we are keeping everyone safe, including our visitors.”
The state has ample vaccine supply, McKee said. This week, the state marked a milestone, with 1 million vaccines taken since the effort began.
The residency requirement previously had been dropped only for people who work or go to school in Rhode Island but are legal residents of other states.
Appointments are no longer required for vaccinations at the state’s mass-vaccination sites. And the state recently expanded eligibility for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to include teens aged 12 to 15.
Pop-up clinics are being held across the state at businesses as well. A clinic will be stationed at T.F. Green Airport by the end of the month to allow travelers to obtain the vaccines, according to Tom McCarthy, the R.I. Department of Health’s executive director for COVID-19 response.
Confirmed cases in the state increased by 149 on Wednesday, with two new deaths, the R.I. Department of Health said Thursday.
Hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients in Rhode Island totaled 96, a decline from 101 one day prior. Of those hospitalized, 22 were in an intensive care unit, a rise of one day to day, and 15 were on a ventilator, a decline of one from the previous day.
There have been 478,884 individuals fully vaccinated and 1.04 million total vaccine doses administered in the state to date.
Confirmed cases have totaled 150,231 in Rhode Island to date, a decrease of 21 from figures reported Wednesday, accounting for the day-to-day increase, as well as data revisions for previous days.
Deaths due to the virus in the state have totaled 2,698 to date.
There were 11,896 tests processed Wednesday, with an overall positive rate of 1.3%. When excluding both repeat positive and repeat negative test results, the positive rate was 11.9%.
There have been 4.17 million tests administered in the state to 912,492 individuals.
(This story has been updated to include daily COVID-19 statistics from the R.I. Department of Health.)
Mary MacDonald is a staff writer for the PBN. Contact her at MacDonald@PBN.com.
