Special to The Times
ST. CLAIRSVILLE Ohio school employees are set to begin receiving COVID-19 vaccines next week, but no local school districts are among the first group to get the shots.
Gov. Mike DeWine intends to make the shots available to school staff through February with the goal of resuming full-time in-person schooling in March.
Belmont County Deputy Health Director Robert Sproul addressed this during his Wednesday report to the Belmont County Board of Commissioners. Sproul said the state released names of the first school districts to receive vaccinations next week. However, no school districts in Belmont, Harrison, Jefferson or Monroe counties are on the list.
As several dozen died from COVID-19 each day in December, refrigerated trailers were rolled out to county coroners across Ohio to store any overflow of bodies.
The if-needed body storage space marked the activation of the first phase of Ohio s contingency plan to deal with mass coronavirus casualties as outlined in a document developed by state officials, county coroners, funeral directors and others.
The refrigerated trailers, with most capable of containing 54 to 72 bodies on racks, were sent to county coroners in designated regional cities: Lima, Cleveland, Toledo, Canton, Athens, Bucyrus, Cambridge, Marysville, Georgetown and Vandalia.
Two of the coroners, in Stark and Lucas counties, have intermittently used the trailers to temporarily store bodies from their region, a state health department spokeswoman said.
ST. CLAIRSVILLE Ohio school employees are set to begin receiving COVID-19 vaccines next week, but no local school districts are among the first group to ge
Three central Ohio hospital systems offered the coronavirus vaccine to employees who work from home, potentially stretching the bounds of what was permitted in the state s initial rollout of the shots.
Phase 1A of Ohio s vaccine rollout identified those first in line to receive the shot as health care workers and personnel who are routinely involved in the care of COVID-19 patients.
The state guidelines, published Dec. 15, said high-risk health care providers should be prioritized during Phase 1A, singling out those with the greatest occupation risk for exposure to and/or transmission of COVID-19. As examples, the state listed surgeons, primary care doctors, urgent-care workers, home health workers, dental providers, pharmacy workers and others who provide direct health care.