COVID-19 vaccine starts continue decline in Butler County: How much they’ve dropped

Even fewer vaccines have been administered this week. Monday and Tuesday vaccines starts and completions were half what they were seven days earlier.

Butler County is mirroring that statewide and national trend, but the county health commissioner said the key is people getting the second vaccine dose.

“Everyone needs to complete the two-shot series so they get full coverage,” said Butler County Health Commissioner Jennifer Bailer. “We have a lot of people who will be going through our large clinics at the (Butler County) fairgrounds in the next couple of weeks for their second shot. Once these clinics are completed, we feel that our statistics will improve on second-shots completed, compared to first shots only.

“There just hasn’t been enough time for everyone who has started the series to have completed it yet.”

The state reported Thursday that 4.66 million people in Ohio have started the vaccination process, which is just under 40 percent of the state’s population. Nearly 80 percent of those who have started the vaccination process have completed it. The 3.71 million people who have completed the inoculation process represent less than a third (31.8 percent) of the state, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

In Butler County, 139,979 people, or 36.54 percent of the population, have started the process, and 75.8 percent have completed the vaccine. The 106,074 people who completed the process represent less than 28 percent of the county, according to the state health department.

“I think we, the public health system and our partners, have done a great job of vaccinating those who want to be vaccinated and have the resources to get to a clinic,” she said. “It is now our responsibility to reach out to those who aren’t so easy to reach ― those who may lack transportation, or who have jobs that have non-traditional hours, or for whom English is a second language, or who are uncomfortable with traditional settings.”

That means getting the vaccine “to all corners of the county,” she said, which the health district has been making efforts to do.

The county health district is already utilizing teams of public health professionals to go to factories, businesses, food processing plants and fulfillment centers, as well as homes to people who are homebound. They are also reaching out to churches, cities and community centers.

“We are taking the vaccine to the people,” she said.

Last week, DeWine called on any health care providers to contact the state if they believe they could help distribute the vaccine. He said the state will supply these partners vaccine if they have a “unique ability to reach people who have not been reached yet.”

Ohio Department of Health Chief Medical Officer Bruce Vanderhoff previously said until “a lot more vaccines” are administered, “the unvaccinated are quite simply playing a COVID lottery. And it’s a lottery whose consequences are pretty stark.”

He said the virus is “now in more contagious forms” which put younger people at greater risk, including hospitalization.

More than 1.07 million coronavirus cases have been reported since March 2020, with nearly 19,200 people dying from the virus, the state health department reported Thursday.

FACTS & FIGURES

Fewer people are starting the COVID-19 vaccination process. Here is how the decline has occurred in Butler County: