Any Orange County resident age 65 and older is now eligible to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, county health officials said Tuesday, Jan.

People age 75 and older were recently given preference by the OC Health Care Agency as it starts up the vaccination campaign’s next stage, but after reviewing some alarming statistics on who is hospitalized and in intensive care because of COVID-19, the county’s vaccine task force late Sunday recommended expanding vaccinations to people 65 and older, County Health Officer Dr.

hospitals, which are providing the bulk of care to COVID-19 patients in the county, showed a majority of people who are hospitalized, as well as most of those requiring intensive care and in need of a ventilator, are 61 or older, Chau said.

It was not clear Tuesday when vaccine appointments could be initiated by people who qualify in current phases without an invitation from the OC Health Care Agency’s partner organizations or private providers such as Kaiser Permanente, the county’s largest.

“There will also be targeted communications to these older adult communities,” the OC Health Care Agency’s Vaccination Distribution website says.

Reflecting the previous emphasis on inoculating health care workers and those in nursing homes and similar facilities, Orange County data through Jan.

Chau told members of the vaccine task force during an emergency meeting Sunday that the county had administered roughly half of its supply of vaccines, noting that data provided to him by the state could be outdated due to slow reporting.

By that point, Orange County was ahead of the state as a whole, which had administered about a third of its vaccines, Chau told the group during the virtual meeting.