MIAMI VALLEY — COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in Ohio are falling, however, only about 57% of Ohioans are fully vaccinated.
That puts Ohio in the bottom half of the nation in terms of vaccination rates.
News Center 7′s Mike Campbell spoke with a doctor about what’s behind the poor performance and what we can do to turn it around.
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There’s been a lot of surprises in the COVID pandemic, and one of them has been Ohio’s poor performance in things like the testing positivity rate, as well as higher hospitalization and death rates.
One of the few good signs is a recent improvement in vaccination rates.
“I think anytime that happens, people start to re-evaluate their decisions,” said Dr. Joseph Allen, a regional director with Premier Health and runs a medical practice in Vandalia.
He said the Omicron fielded surge in Ohio of hospitalizations and illnesses helped boost vaccination rates.
That surge raised Ohio’s vaccination rate up 3% in matter of weeks, moving the state from 44th in the nation to 35th.
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But still, only 57% of people in the state are fully vaccinated and leaves Ohio one spot behind Michigan and badly trailing nearby states like Illinois and Pennsylvania.
“It’s obviously been a political issue and an emotional issue,” Dr. Allen said.
Dr. Allen is fine with the fact that there have not been nationwide and statewide mandates for vaccination—personal choice is good but should force responsible decision-making.
“I’m totally for someone having the choice, i just want to make sure they’re making that choice with the right information,” Dr. Allen said.
Dr. Allen doesn’t like where Ohio sits in the vaccination ranks nationwide.
He’s even more alarmed by Ohio having the highest hospitalization rate in the country in December of 2021 while having the second highest positivity rate for COVID testing.
That’s led to equally horrific COVID death rates.
Ohio has the third highest COVID death rate at 1.4/per one hundred thousand residents, trailing only Mississippi and South Carolina and the only non-southern state in the Top 4.
“That is confounding, why would that happen, some may be the health of our population to begin with,” Dr. Allen said.
Dr. Allen points out that Ohio has very good medical infrastructure.
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He said that one theory is that Ohio had a large portion of the population that had high risk factors when the pandemic began, including large numbers of people struggling with obesity or diabetes.
Still, he said the last few weeks prove that Ohioans can quickly make a difference in vaccination rates. That’s one way to stop COVID surges from being so deadly.
“The surges are still going to come but instead of Mount Everest, they will be more like a speed bump,” Dr. Allen said.
The goal at this point should be to avoid hospitalization since very few of us will escape contracting at least one case of the virus.
Doctors are encouraged that they have more treatment options at this point but they said the best one is still vaccination.
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