Ohio Now Vaccinating Ohioans 65+

COLUMBUS, OH — Vaccination of Ohioans 65 and older began this week. Vaccine eligibility will not expand to other groups for several weeks, Gov. Mike DeWine said.

For now, Ohio is focusing on vaccinating its most vulnerable residents and teachers and school faculty. The goal is to limit deaths and hospitalizations related to the virus, and allow schools to safely reopen.

The state has invited more than 750 partners to administer the vaccine, making partners of pharmacies, hospitals, local health clinics and others. Many of those partners are now delivering the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to patients.

"With over a million people vaccinated so far, are there going to be people who forget their second shot? Will there be people who miss the shot due to a mix up? Sure," DeWine said. "There are people on both sides of this. Mistakes will be made, but we believe the system is a good system."

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Ohio is also launching a new program to help low-income Ohioans, DeWine announced Tuesday.

"We worked with the General Assembly to request that the state Controlling Board approve $100 million in federal funding to help low-income Ohioans who do not own their own home to pay their rent, water, sewer, wastewater, electric, gas, oil or trash removal bills," the governor said.

Tuesday's COVID Numbers

Here are all of Tuesday's COVID-19 numbers:

• New cases: 3,207.
• New deaths: 98.
• New hospitalizations: 181.
• New ICU admissions: 22.

The Ohio Department of Health estimated that 828,455 Ohioans have contracted COVID-19 and recovered.

More than 9 percent of Ohioans have received at least the first part of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the state health department. As of Wednesday afternoon, 1.09 million Ohioans had received at least the first shot and 325,909 Ohioans have completed the vaccination process.