Ohio To Begin Vaccinating Nursing Home Residents, Employees Friday

Ohio nursing homes have seen devastating impacts from the coronavirus, with a majority of the state's reported deaths from COVID-19 coming from those in long-term care facilities. Gov. Mike DeWine residents and workers at these facilities will begin to receive the new COVID-19 vaccine Friday.

"We can't wait, frankly, to get as many vaccinated as quickly as possible," DeWine said Thursday.

The state has partnered with four pharmacies to distribute the vaccine to nursing homes. Nursing homes signed up with one of the four providers: Walgreen's, CVS, Absolute Health and PharmScript.

Ohio was invited by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to participate in scaling up the nursing home vaccination program, DeWine said.

"We have a moral obligation to get this vaccine out as quickly as we can," DeWine said, adding that the goal at each nursing home is to vaccinate as many people as possible at each facility. For people who are unsure about getting the shot now, DeWine said the vaccine will be available later, but "I don't know when that opportunity will be."

Nursing homes that did not sign up with one of the four vaccine providers also will eventually get the vaccine, DeWine said, but his administration is still working on those details.

Because of the risk nursing homes residents face from COVID-19, "This is an intervention I really, truly believe will save lives," said Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, medical director of the Ohio Department of Health.

State Remains Red

The state's public health alert advisory map remains awash in red. Just one county — Richland — is still purple, but DeWine advised people not to be deceived. Purple is used to indicate that cases are spiking.

"When everything is virtually red, the importance of [the map] takes on less meaning," DeWine said.

The governor encouraged people to look at what's going on in the hospitals in their community and at county-by-county coronavirus incidence. Every Ohio county currently reports at least three times the rate of high incidence as defined by the CDC, which is more than 100 cases per 100,000 people.

Daily New Confirmed & Probable COVID-19 Cases In Ohio
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"We have many that are much, much higher than that," DeWine said. "The only good thing we can say is the Thanksgiving bump that we feared is not what we expected.”

He again cited the current 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew and the state's mask mandate as being effective in having “slowed this down. But there's nothing to be happy about as we look at these numbers,” he said.

A technical glitch impaired an accurate count of the state’s COVID-19 cases Wednesday. Averaging the 5,409 cases reported Wednesday and the 11,412 new cases reported Thursday puts the two-day count at 8,411. The number of COVID-19 patients in Ohio's hospitals and intensive care units remains a concern.

Do It For The Kids

DeWine said the statewide incidence shows one out of every four patients in hospitals has COVID-19, as does one out of every three ICU patients.

"All this impacts the ability of schools to stay open," he said.

The state reports a growing number of districts are ending in-person instruction with 45 percent of Ohio’s students now attending school remotely, 28 percent receiving instruction in person and 26 percent on a hybrid plan.

The governor pointed to reports that thousands of students in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District are not logging on and have essentially disappeared.

"If you don't have a reason yet to wear a mask, to keep distance, to not eat with anybody who doesn't live in your own household...I'll give you a good reason: We need our kids back in school,” he said.

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