Early Friday morning, Mayor Andrew Ginther joined Governor Mike DeWine at Columbus’s Crown Pointe Care Center to mark the expansion of Ohio’s vaccination efforts into long-term care facilities.
The first shot, administered around 7:30 a.m., came so quickly that DeWine nearly missed it while outside watching the live feed on a monitor. DeWine said he is not sure when the vaccinations will be done for 350,000 residents and staff in long-term care facilities.
“We would certainly hope to be by the end of January, but we really don’t know,” said DeWine. “We will honestly have a much better idea after the first week and see how fast this process is.
Nursing home residents and staff receive the vaccine through private pharmacies such as Walgreens and CVS under a federal CDC program.
Even as he celebrated the initiative, Ginther stressed the importance of continuing to wear masks, keeping a distance, and limiting social interactions in order to curb the COVID-19 pandemic.
“While the vaccine gives us long-term hope in our fight against COVID-19,” said Ginther, “we must do our very best and re-engage to protect those close to us in our communities.”
Ginther said it is important to inoculate nursing home residents and staff because of the spread of the virus within the facilities.
“We all know that our long-term care facilities have been one of the hardest hit by this pandemic: 325 workers and residents of long-term care facilities here in our community have been killed by the virus,” Ginther said.
All told, DeWine expects the state to receive nearly 700,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year. DeWine said Ohio has not seen or been notified of smaller shipments coming, as some states have reported, but admits it is uncertain they will get those photos until they actually arrive.