COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio has guided vaccine distributors to use the sixth and seventh shots if possible from Pfizer vials, which were expected to contain doses for just five people.
"If they can get more out of it then they should take it. Our instructions to them was if you’re vaccinating, just keep going, do not waste any of it," Gov. Mike DeWine said.
He said it changes the math for how many shots the state can administer in December, but exactly how shots the state can average from each vial remains an open question.
“This is so valuable, and we don’t want any of it lost," DeWine said. "If you can get six out of it, if you can get seven out of it, that’s great."
State officials said Thursday more vaccine shipments are on the way to Ohio and addressed concerns about side effects from the Pfizer vaccine.
Gov. Mike DeWine said he expects Moderna’s vaccine to help Ohio vaccinate many more hospital staffs next week, sharing the state will be using Pfizer’s vaccine mostly for nursing homes.
The Ohio Department of Health’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff addressed the anaphylactic reaction by a Pfizer vaccine recipient in Alaska, which was reported Wednesday.
“We’ve anticipated that there will be infrequent events of anaphylaxes,” Vanderhoff said. “And let me add that this is not the only vaccine for which that’s a possibility. That’s a possibility with many of our vaccines. The good news is that anaphylaxes is something the medical is prepared to treat, knows how to treat, and is, in fact, a transient event in the vast majority of cases.”
The governor said it excites him to see health care workers continue to be vaccinated this week.
“Next week we will see many, many more hospitals that we hope will get the vaccine. The Moderna vaccine will be going out to them and that will be very exciting,” DeWine said.
The governor said four pharmacies will use the continued shipments of Pfizer’s vaccine to immunize long-term care facilities: CVS, Walgreens, PharmScript and Absolute Pharmacy.
Nursing home immunizations are expected to begin Friday by all four companies. DeWine said Ohio will release a list of the nursing homes that are getting the vaccine Friday. The governor said he will watch vaccine distribution at the Ohio Veterans Home in Sandusky, as well as long-term care facilities in Columbus and Cleveland.
CVS Health was hiring 850 licensed pharmacy technicians in Ohio for the vaccination effort.
“We have lost a large number of people in our nursing homes. We cannot wait frankly to get as many vaccinated as quickly as we can,” DeWine said.
The governor shared vaccine updates at his briefing Thursday afternoon as the state reported 11,412 new COVID-19 cases, but the governor said due to incomplete reporting Wednesday it is more useful to look at the two-day case average, which was 8,411.
“It’s impossible to determine how many were yesterday, how many were today,” DeWine said.
In the latest advisory map, which shows where the spread of the virus is accelerating most quickly, one county, Richland, stayed purple, the worst indicator for rate of transmission.
Officials say the spread of COVID-19 is finally plateauing after several weeks of deteriorating outlook.
“There’s nothing to be happy about as we look at these numbers. Now, the only good thing we can say is the Thanksgiving bump that we feared has not been what we expected. We think there probably has been a bump,” DeWine said. “What we really need to see is a drop in the number of cases.”
DeWine shared sad news David Keith, corrections officer at the Ohio State Penitentiary, died after a COVID-19 diagnosis last week.
Ohio State Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Andrew Thomas said Wednesday Ohio is still reporting more than 5,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, just shy of the all-time high.
“The good news is we've had over 5,000 people in the hospital since Nov. 30. The data has plateaued a little bit over the last two weeks in terms of total number of people in the hospital on any given day, which is a positive compared to what our trends were from say Nov. 1 to Dec. 1,” Thomas said.
The state reports 845 patients were on a ventilator. The mortality rate for those patients on the ventilators is more than 40%.