State prepares to vaccinate oldest Ohioans
Ohio hospitals have been instructed to complete their vaccinations of health care workers by this weekend to clear the decks to begin helping to administer doses to the 420,000 Ohioans age 80 and older beginning next Tuesday.
Gov. Mike Dewine made the announcement Tuesday during his coronavirus briefing and provided more details on how senior citizens can find information on obtaining the first of the two needed shots of two approved vaccines.
Local health departments and county emergency management agencies will conduct news conferences or release information on Wednesday or Thursday to detail how and where older Ohioans can obtain vaccinations from 800 local providers beginning next Tuesday, the governor said.
Dewine said hospitals need to finish vaccinating staff members so they can turn to assisting older Ohioans, and later others, in obtaining shots. Hospitals will be asked to return or deploy doses they hold after this weekend to help expand vaccination efforts, he said.
Federal officials on Tuesday were urging states not to save second doses for those who have received the first, but to roll out available supplies to vaccinate more of those over the age of 65 and others at high risk to speed up the massive undertaking.
Dewine called the new tactic "a welcome change" that will allow Ohio to get more shots into more arms more quickly, but he said it was not known when "banked" doses would be released by federal authorities.
Ohio is in the middle of the pack when it comes to vaccinating residents. To date, nearly 322,000, or 2.75% of nearly 11.7 million Ohioans have received a vaccine, well below rates of 5.5% in South Dakota and 5.4% in West Virginia.
Amid initial projections of only about 100,000 anticipated doses a week would be available and warnings some still will have to wait, the state plans to begin offering inoculations to the first of about 2.2 million Ohioans over the next three weeks. "It's going to take awhile," DeWine cautioned.
The state will begin offering vaccinations next week to Ohioans age 80 and over because senior citizens 65 and over have accounted for 87% of statewide deaths. Providers have been instructed to use all of their vaccine doses within seven days.
Vaccinations will expand the week of
Jan. 25 to those age 75 and older and those with certain developmental and medical disorders, including cerebral palsy, spina bifida, congenital heart disease and Type 1 diabetes.
During the week of Feb. 1, vaccinations will be offered to those age 70 and older, as well as school teachers and employees of districts committing to inperson classes for students starting March 1. Ohioans age 65 and older first will be eligible for shots during the week of Feb. 8.
Ohio generally routed its first doses of the pair of approved vaccines to hospitals, to inoculate frontline health care workers, and to pharmacy teams vaccinating residents and staff in skilled-care nursing homes and long-term care facilities. Dewine said 85% of nursing homes now have been visited by vaccination teams.
Meanwhile, health officials reported 7,981 new COVID-19 infections and 100 additional deaths on Tuesday, bringing totals in the 10-month-old pandemic to 792,938 cases and 9,802 deaths.
The new infections were more than 500 higher than the three-week daily average.
Virus infections, deaths and hospitalizations all increased last week compared with the prior week.
COVID-19 cases increased by 13% to an average of 8,043 a day, while deaths climbed by 8% to 582. Of the 17 days when the pandemic death toll has hit 100 or more, 15 have come since Dec. 1.
Hospitalizations rose last week by 14%, although the daily census of virus patients now stands at 4,010 — 24% below its mid-december peak of about 5,300. About one of every 19 Ohioans infected with coronavirus has ended up in the hospital.
Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Jessie Balmert contributed to this story.