CORONAVIRUS

COVID vaccine could be available to school staffers, Ohioans 65 and older, in two weeks

Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch

Though details remain to be announced, Gov. Mike DeWine says COVID-19 vaccinations soon can be offered to the first of more than 2 million Ohioans, including those age 65 and over and school employees, in the next phase.

DeWine said Tuesday that the first shot of the two-shot vaccine regimens should be administered beginning in about two weeks to about 1.8 million potentially vulnerable older Ohioans and up to 300,000 school teachers and employees.

The vaccinations being offered to school teachers and employees are contingent on their school districts committing to resume in-person classes by March 1.

The state anticipates that 100,000 doses will be available in the first week, DeWine said, with the state working to make vaccinations available without appointments for some at drive-thru clinics at fairgrounds, while also trying to get vaccines to doctors to administer by appointment.

"I don't like it, but we play with the hand we're dealt," DeWine said when it was pointed out that with a 100,000-a-week vaccine pace, it would take months to vaccinate the 2 million-plus next targeted for shots.

DeWine said state planning for the expanded vaccinations seeks to avoid "massive inconvenience" for those in line for shots, "but get vaccines out as fast as we can ... in the next few days, we will make it very clear where people will be able to get a vaccine."

A total of 87% of Ohio's 9,000-plus pandemic deaths have occurred among those age 65 and older, DeWine said, in outlining the priority for older residents.

About 75,000 medically fragile Ohioans under age 65 also are targeted for vaccinations in the next phase. 

State health officials say that nearly 221,000 at-risk Ohioans now have received first-shot COVID-19 vaccinations, with about 60% of doses still not administered three weeks after inoculations against the deadly virus began.

Inoculations of nursing home residents and employees have consumed only 20% of the doses drawn down by pharmacy chains handling Ohio's skilled-care nursing homes.

Health department spokeswoman Melanie Amato said the state has shipped 322,185 vaccine doses to hospitals and local health departments, with 175,408 of the doses now administered for a 55% shot-in-the-arm figure.

Pharmacy chains such as Walgreens and CVS have been allocated about 228,000 vaccine doses from the federal program for nursing home patients and employees, and have administered 45,426 vaccinations, or 20% of doses, as of Monday, Amato said. Comment was being sought from the pharmacy chains.

DeWine attributed the low percentage to a federal requirement that pharmacy partners "bank" some of their credited doses, and not immediately draw them down, for later use as vaccinations expand to second shots and beyond skilled-care nursing homes to assisted-living facilities and others.

COVID-19 in Ohio: 5,942 new cases reported after deadly December

Dr. Julie Kennerly-Shah draws out a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine as it's distributed to health care workers on Dec. 15 at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center East in Columbus.

DeWine has expressed concern about the pace of vaccinations and called about accelerating efforts to quickly deploy doses of two different vaccines. He said Tuesday that the Ohio National Guard will assist vaccination efforts.

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DeWine on Tuesday called it "bad news" that only about 40% of nursing home and long-term care employees are accepting vaccination, with the rate for residents running at 75% to 80%.

He called it "good news" that 61% of skilled-care nursing homes had received first-shot vaccination visits as of Sunday, with the state expecting that number to reach 80% by week's end and perhaps be finished late next week.

He urged both long-term care employees and residents to accept voluntary vaccinations due to nursing homes accounting for slightly more than half of all virus deaths. When second shots of the two-shot regimens begin, those who refused the first shot should agree to take it, he said.

Ohio Department of Aging Director Ursel McElroy expressed concern about the low vaccination rate among long-term care employees, saying "it compromises our ability to eradicate this virus," with the state working to educate them about the inoculations.

Workers have expressed concerns about side effects, the safety of vaccines, with some not trusting vaccinations and others believing the risk of infection is exaggerated, she said. DeWine said 35 Pfizer vaccine doses, which require deep freeze storage, were wasted after one nursing home overstated the number it needed.

Meanwhile, state health officials reported 7,580 new daily coronavirus infections and an additional 104 deaths on Tuesday.

The newly reported infections were about in line with the three-week daily average after a huge spike in December came to represent 40% of all recorded cases since the pandemic began.

The new fatalities brought the state death toll to 9,247, while the total number of infections increased to 735,003.

Hospitals reported a high 538 new admissions of COVID-19 patients to increase the total number currently hospitalized by 43 to 4,447 after discharges. Nearly one-fourth of the most-ill patients are in intensive-care units.

Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, medical director of the Ohio Department of Health, said busy Columbus hospitals on Monday began coordinating to divert emergency room patients in need of admission to other hospitals to balance patient loads and ensure proper care.

The ER diversions involve patients suffering from heart attacks, gunshot wounds and other health problems and are not restricted to COVID-19 patients. Columbus-area hospitals periodically close their emergency rooms to new patients when they are busy. Columbus-area hospital virus patient admissions have dropped 17% in the past three weeks.

In response to a question, DeWine said he would not lift the state's 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. COVID overnight curfew to permit football fans to gather to watch evening games on TV. "That would simply add to the spread that we already have," DeWine said. "We cannot add to the problem."

The Ohio State University Buckeyes play Alabama for the national college football championship at 8 p.m. on Monday and the Cleveland Browns play the Pittsburgh Steelers in a NFL wild-card playoff game at 8:15 p.m. on Sunday.

In addition to hospitals, doses also have been deployed to local health departments to vaccinate emergency medical workers, non-hospital health care workers, assisted-living facilities not in the pharmacy program and group homes The number of Ohioans being offered vaccines in the initial round total about 1 million.

Amato noted the state's online virus dashboard currently understates the number of vaccinations due to reporting problems by hospitals and other providers that the state is working to correct.

During a webinar Tuesday afternoon by STAT+, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and a senior official for the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force, said she isn't concerned about the slow rollout of vaccinations nationwide.

“It’s the early stages of a very complicated task,” she said, with new vaccines administered via new platforms during a pandemic in the middle of the holidays.

“I’m not surprised at the early numbers, I think it’s what we really expected,” Messonnier said. “I really expected the pace of the administration to go up pretty massively in the next couple of weeks.”

But she acknowledged that “we need to increase convenience. ... Our goal has to be easy access to the vaccine in every community in the United States.”

Dispatch Public Affairs Editor Darrel Rowland contributed to this story.

rludlow@dispatch.com

@RandyLudlow