Ohio Governor Mike Dewine says the state is scheduled to recieve 420-thousand doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year, if the pharmacuetical company Moderna's drug is granted FDA emergency approval.
The state has begun phase one of the vaccination plan, and will begin working with nursing home residents and staff by next week. But DeWine cautions the state cannot "vaccinate its way out of the pandemic" and people still need to be vigilant about basic precautions like mask wearing, handwashing and social distancing:
"The rest of December, January, February, are probably going to be hell unless we turn this thing around. Let's be blunt. So no, we should NOT interpret this, the good news of the vaccine as anything but what it is, good news, but it will not get us out of this. Just think about this: the first person to get a second shot in Ohio,is not going to happen for another three weeks. We've got a long way to go."
State heatlh officials Tuesday reported more than 87 hundred new cases of COVID-19 and 103 deaths. Ohio now has over 579,300 cases and 7,654 deaths. And hospitalizations continue to escalate; there were 614 new admissions reported Tuesday, 74 to intensive care units. Both numbers are nearly double the three week average. There are a record 5,296 Ohioans hospitalized with COVID-19, and 20 percent of those are in intensive care units.
