All Pennsylvania adults will become eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine on April 19

Pennsylvania officials announced on Thursday that everyone 16 and older will become eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on April 19.

The remaining 700,000 to one million people in Phase 1B will become eligible on April 5, and the 1.3 to 1.7 million people in Phase 1C will become eligible on April 12, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. These changes, however, do not apply to Philadelphia, which said it would not change its vaccine distribution timeline in response to the state. Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said that all adults in Philadelphia will become eligible for the vaccine by May 1.

Pennsylvania currently ranks above the national average when it comes to the percentage of adults vaccinated, according to the Inquirer. Of the 3.5 million Pennsylvanians who have received at least one dose of the vaccine as of March 31, 1.8 million of them have been fully vaccinated. 

President Joe Biden announced that the United States will have enough COVID-19 vaccines for every adult in the country by the end of May. 

The City of Philadelphia recently approved Penn as an official COVID-19 vaccination site. The University will likely begin vaccinating people who are eligible under Phase 1A and 1B of the city’s vaccine rollout plan in mid-April. The majority of Penn students will likely become eligible for vaccination at the site on May 1 in concordance with the city's vaccine distribution plan.

Some Penn and Drexel students have already received the vaccine in recent weeks, despite being ineligible under Philadelphia's guidelines.