Coronavirus

98,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine expected in first week in Ohio, more info coming Friday

By WHIO Staff
By WHIO Staff

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced numbers of how many doses of the Pfizer vaccine the state is expected to receive in the first week’s shipment during his afternoon press conference.

He also said there will be a press briefing Friday to discuss the vaccine distribution or priorities in more depth.

>>Free pop-up COVID-19 testing site in Greenville Thursday

The following announcements were made this afternoon:

  • DeWine said he will be releasing new information on vaccine distribution and priorities when it comes to that on Friday. CVS and Walgreens have been selected to assist with vaccines at nursing homes, DeWine said.
  • DeWine was able to say that he believes Ohio will receive approximately 98,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the first week of shipments coming this month. Those doses will be sent out and administered to as many Ohioans as possible. The Pfizer vaccine calls for two vaccinations, however the state will not hold back half of the doses to account for that.
  • The state is planning to report how many vaccinations are administered each day.
  • Dewine said the state will not require healthcare workers or others in the state to get the vaccine.
  • Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, Ohio’s Chief Medical Officer, said the development of the coronavirus vaccines, while fast, “has not been at the sacrifice of safety.”
  • Today’s case count is the fifth highest since the pandemic began, with 8,921 new cases being reported to the state.
  • Darke County is the county with the highest coronavirus case occurrence per 100,000 residents, with 1146.5 cases per 100,000 residents. That means 1 in 100 people in the last two weeks in the county have tested positive for COVID-19.
  • DeWine said the curfew and enforcement of mask wearing have helped with COVID-19 spread, however the state has not seen the virus cases plateau, but has seen the rate of increase slow down some.
  • DeWine said he vetoed the bill this morning that would have limited the powers of the governor to make orders to close down businesses due to coronavirus.
  • DeWine said you should be wearing a mask around anyone outside your individual household, even if its people in your own family.
  • Some hospitals are beginning to postpone elective and non-emergency surgeries.
  • Dr. Andrew Thomas with the Ohio State Medical Center said ICU beds are beginning to become the biggest impacted hospital capacity figure. Some rural hospitals are seeing more than half of their ICU patients having COVID-19. Some hospitals were running out of ventilators in rural Ohio and central Ohio hospitals helped get them the ventilators they needed, Thomas said.
  • Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, the state’s chief medical officer, said if you have to leave your home to go out you should be wearing a mask. He said the 15% test positivity rate in Ohio should be a wake-up call to Ohioans. “This virus spreads between people when we’re near each other. For a little while, we need to stay apart,” Vanderhoff said. “That means we have to stay home unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
  • Dr. Nora Colburn, Associate Medical Director for Clinical Epidemiology at Ohio State Medical Center, said hospitals will get overwhelmed if trends do not change. “The bottom line is - non-COVID patients are being crowded out of the system and won’t be able to get the care they need to stay healthy,” Colburn said.
  • DeWine urged Congress to pass a bill to help fund coronavirus-related relief including unemployment. “This goes back to the bridge we’re talking about that needs built,” DeWine said. “We need help.”

Other news in the coronavirus pandemic:

LATEST STATE DATA:

As of Thursday afternoon, there have been at least 446,849 confirmed or probable cases in the state. The state has reported 6,753 deaths, and 28,281 hospitalizations, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

>>Latest cases, deaths, hospitalizations, and presumed recoveries reported to the Ohio Department of Health

As of Thursday afternoon, there have been at least 446,849 confirmed or probable cases in the state. The state has reported 6,753 deaths, and 28,281 hospitalizations, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

298,332 people were presumed to have recovered from the virus as of Monday.

Ohio has an estimated population of approximately 11.7 million, census records show.

There have been 6,246,787 people tested for the coronavirus in Ohio, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

A total of 31,392 health care workers have tested positive which is about 7 percent of the cases.

Cox Media Group

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