The Minnesota Department of Health has announced an expansion of the COVID-19 vaccination eligibility rules. The state is going to allow hospitals and health care systems to vaccinate a broader category of Minnesotans. This would include people who are not frontline health care workers, but who are over 65, or younger people with underlying conditions that put them more at risk.

Of course, all that depends on the availability of doses. You can vaccinate someone if you don’t have the vaccine available. It’s a good idea, in places where everyone in the 1A category — the frontline health care workers and residents in congregate facilities — and there are extra doses to give them to the people next in line without waiting for the official word.

But different locations have different supplies and different demands. In Brown County, for example, Brown County Public Health is still working on innoculating the 1A group. There are a lot of frontline health care workers, thanks to the large New Ulm Medical Center staff and all the many nursing homes, assisted living centers and senior care centers in the county. We have a lot of those workers to innoculate and Brown County Public Health is getting to them first.

We all look forward to the day when the COVID-19 vaccine is readily available to all who want it. We will have to be patient, however, until the supply catches up to the demand. In those places where a broader group can be vaccinated, the rule relaxation will allow them to be served.

We are grateful to all the frontline healthcare workers, and those whose work puts them in contact with others — police, teachers and so on. We want you all to get the protection you need, and will be glad to wait our turn.

In the meantime, as always we urge people to use all due precautions — wearing face masks, social distancing, avoiding large crowds, washing hands, and so on. Keep taking care of yourself until this pandemic can be defeated.