Research has found that individuals with severe mental illness and substance abuse disorder are among those at highest risk for contracting COVID-19 and COVID-19 related mortality.
As such, we believe that individuals with mental and substance use disorders should be among those listed as eligible in the March 15 vaccine allocation guidelines. We signed a letter urging the state of California to consider an additional update to the vaccine prioritization guidelines to explicitly include these conditions in the criteria listed for vaccine prioritization.