LOVELAND MAGAZINE

News and Events from the Loveland, Ohio Area

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Since 2004

Tag: Vaccine reluctance

  • Coronavirus cases in Ohio, neighboring states might be inching back up

    Coronavirus cases in Ohio, neighboring states might be inching back up

    By Marty Schladen and Ohio Capital Journal

    After a disastrous January, coronavirus cases in Ohio steadily marched downward. Then in recent weeks, they hit a plateau. Now, even as greater numbers of Ohioans get vaccinated, case numbers might be inching back up.

    Ohio might be part of a disturbing national trend.

    The Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center published a set of graphs titled, “America is reopening. But have we flattened the curve?” They map shows trends for each state and color codes them — red for states with increasing case numbers and blue for states where numbers are dropping. How deeply shaded they are indicates how quickly cases are dropping or falling in a state.

    The red in Ohio’s graph is so light that it barely amounts to a blush. More disturbing, is that every neighboring state but one is a deeper shade. Kentucky is a very light shade of blue.

    The trend extends across the country. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week said that the seven-day average of coronavirus cases nationally was up 7% over a week earlier.

    That prompted CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Monday to say she felt a sense of “impending doom.” 

    “Now is one of those times when I have to share the truth and I have to hope and trust you will listen,” Walensky said, according to the Charlotte Observer. “Right now I’m scared.” 

    Those comments prompted President Joe Biden to call on governors in states that had ended their mask mandates to reinstate them.

    “People are letting up on precautions, which is a very bad thing,” Biden said, according to the New York Times.  “We are giving up hard-fought, hard-won gains.”

    The recent rise in cases is probably driven by several factors.

    States like Texas have lifted mask mandates and indoor capacity limits. Not only does that take away tools to limit the spread of the virus, it could send a message that the pandemic is over and precautions are no longer needed.

    Ohio’s mask and other orders remain in place. And Gov. Mike DeWine rarely misses an opportunity to urge the public to take precautions against the virus.

    But as the weather is warming and vaccines are becoming increasingly available, people might be letting their guard down. For example, about half the clientele was unmasked on Saturday at a crowded Columbus convenience store near the softball fields at Lou Berliner Park.

    Also, several new variants of the virus are spreading more rapidly than their predecessors. As they crowd out earlier versions of the virus, the spread — and mutations into even more dangerous variants — could accelerate further, experts have said.

    The CDC on Sunday said that the number of cases of the “UK variant” — B.1.1.7 — had jumped 115% in Ohio over a week earlier, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

    Also potentially hampering Ohio’s fight to squelch the disease is that the state will soon have plenty of vaccine, but millions of unvaccinated Ohioans.

    Such “vaccine reluctance” stems from several sources. 

    Some members of minority groups might distrust the health system after a history of abuse or neglect, meanwhile racial inequities in health care access still impede care. Some people have bought into the myth that vaccines cause autism. Still others might not be able to conveniently find one.

    There is also a political dimension. 

    After a year of former President Donald Trump making false statements about the coronavirus, an NPR-PBS-Marist poll conducted earlier this month found that almost half of Republican men said they had no intention of getting vaccinated.

    While other former presidents came together earlier this month to boost the vaccine effort, Trump skipped the event. Trump and his wife, Melania, quietly were vaccinated before they left the White House in January.

    It appears that many Ohioans are skipping the shot for one reason or another.

    Cohorts of older Ohioans who have been eligible for the vaccine for more than a month appear to show the trend. They approach about 70% getting at least a first dose and then the increase slows to a crawl.

    The most vaccinated group of Ohioans by age is now those 70-74, of whom 72% have received at least a first dose.

  • Vaccine floods into Ohio but drop in new covid cases stalls

    Vaccine floods into Ohio but drop in new covid cases stalls

    By Marty Schladen and Ohio Capital Journal

    March 26, 2021

    Ohio got even more good news on the coronavirus vaccine Thursday. But even as doses are flooding into the state, what had been a steady drop in infections has turned into a plateau.

    Gov. Mike DeWine announced that next week — when all Ohio adults will be eligible to be vaccinated — the state will receive 571,000 doses, which he said was “by far and away the highest amount of doses we’ve received.” In fact, it more than quintuples the 100,000 doses a week that the state was receiving in early February.

    The surge has allowed the state to throw open vaccine eligibility to every Ohioan 16 and over starting Monday and it allowed DeWine on Thursday to announce 11 new mass vaccination sites:

    • Knights of Columbus, Lima, 2,500 doses a week
    • Lucas County Recreation Center, 5,000 doses a week
    • Dayton-Montgomery County Convention Center, 5,000 doses a week
    • Celeste Center, Columbus, 5,000 doses a week
    • Summit County Fairgrounds, 5,000 doses a week
    • Southern Park Mall, Mahoning County, 2,500 doses a week
    • Cintas Center, Cincinnati, 5,000 doses a week
    • Wilmington Airpark, 5,000 doses a week
    • Adena Medical Education Center, Ross County, 2,500 doses a week
    • Wayne Street Medical Campus, Marietta, 1,500 doses a week
    • Colony Square Mall, Muskingum County, 1,500 doses a week

    The state also is starting up two mobile vaccination clinics that will visit rural counties in April.

    In all, about a quarter of Ohio adults have now received at least a first dose of the vaccine. Yet progress toward DeWine’s benchmark to remove all remaining health orders has stalled and even gone backward a little since last week.

    DeWine has said once the state drops to 50 new cases a week per 100,000 Ohioans, all the orders come off. But after a long decline, the rate of cases went up from 144 last week to 147 this week.

    While the increase is slight, making it more concerning is that some neighboring states — such as Michigan — are now seeing rapid growth in the number of cases per 100,000.

    Part of that might be because people are tired of pandemic precautions, the weather’s getting nicer and vaccines are more widely available, so some people are abandoning caution. Another reason is that the faster-spreading UK variant of the virus is becoming more predominant.

    “That’s (the variant) we’re seeing the most of,” said Bruce Vanderhoff, chief medical officer for the Ohio Department of Health. “We’ve been expecting a growing presence of these variants.”

    Vaccine reluctance is surely also playing a role. 

    Even though they’ve been eligible to get a shot since January, the portion of Ohioans 80 and over getting at least a first dose only crossed 70% this week.

    “We’re hopeful that these numbers will continue to creep up, move up,” DeWine said of percentages for all age groups.

    Also, some institutions in Ohio haven’t responded to months of repeated offers of vaccines from the state. A frustrated DeWine said he was going to publish the names of 56 nursing homes and 168 assisted-living facilities that have failed to communicate with state officials about the vaccine.

    “I don’t know what else to do,” DeWine said. “I’m worried about the people in these nursing homes” and assisted care facilities.

    So despite the temptation to party like it’s March 2019, state officials are pleading for Ohioans to understand that the pandemic’s still here and still dangerous.

    “We’re in the final stages of this marathon,” Vanderhoff said. “So let’s keep masking and distancing even if you’ve had the chance to roll up your sleeve and get vaccinated.”