While some Ohioans wake up with a cup of coffee or a hot shower every morning, many are now getting up early to hop on their computers and phones to find a COVID-19 vaccine.
As the vaccines have rolled out across Ohio, readers told The Dispatch they have found the search and sign-up for a shot to be difficult, time-consuming and beyond frustrating.
Often, central Ohioans said they spent hours on end, sometimes over several days or weeks, to schedule a vaccination. They visited multiple websites and called several pharmacies and hospitals before being able to nail down an appointment, sometimes by sheer luck or just happening to stumble upon one.
Ohio COVID-19 vaccination details and distribution are always in flux
Moderna vaccine doses to Ohio were expected to increase this week from 73,000 to 105,600 while Pfizer, which now is providing about 73,200 doses a week to Ohio, expects to double that number by mid- to late-February, Gov. Mike DeWine has said.
The constant changes mean details related to the vaccine are always in flux, said Alexis Shaw, spokeswoman for Ohio State University s Wexner Medical Center. The last thing vaccine providers want to do is have to call a patient to canVaccnatcel or reschedule an appointment, she said. Because of the way the vaccine distribution is working, it s kind of a week-by-week situation, Shaw said.
Most independent pharmacies continue to wait on the sidelines of Ohio s COVID-19 vaccination rollout despite their repeated pleas to be included in the public health campaign to end the pandemic.
Barry Klein, president and owner of Cuyahoga Fall s based Klein s Pharmacy, wrote a letter to Gov. Mike DeWine last weekend imploring him to let independent pharmacies do their part. We have been prepared for weeks; however, we continue to be overlooked, putting our pharmacy and our patients at a disadvantage and giving the perception to the public that we are incapable of providing this service, he wrote in his letter.
As Ohio tries to bolster its COVID-19 vaccine distribution, a neighbor to the south may offer a possible strategy.
West Virginia is one of the leading states when it comes to vaccinating its residents and has leaned heavily on its independent pharmacies to make headway. In Ohio, just 20 of roughly 500 independent pharmacies are administering the vaccine so far, said Ernest Boyd, executive director of the Ohio Pharmacists Association.
As of Wednesday, 12.4% of West Virginia s nearly 1.8 million residents had received at least one shot compared with 9.2% of Ohio s 11.7 million residents, according to data provided by each state to Bloomberg s COVID-19 vaccine tracker.