![A nurse prepares Moderna vaccination at a Columbus vaccine clinic. [Dan Konik / Ohio Public Radio]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ce1196c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1000x675+0+0/resize/840x568!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fimages%2Fnews%2Fnpr%2F2021%2F02%2F964408840_246063884.jpg)
Ohio marked an important milestone in the COVID-19 pandemic this week: For the first time, the Ohio Department of Health reports the number of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine outnumbers the total coronavirus cases in the state.
As of Thursday afternoon, 935,383 Ohioans had received at least one dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, according to the Ohio Department of Health (ODH). That’s almost 25,000 more than the 910,847 people who are reported to have contrcted COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic in the spring of 2020.
The pace of vaccination is also far outpacing new cases. On Thursday, ODH reported 27,469 people had received the first vaccine dose in the previous 24 hours, while 4,120 people were newly diagnosed with COVID-19.
Ohio Hospital Association President and CEO Michael Abrams also said COVID-related hospitalizations are down across the state.
“We are detecting improvement: 2,380 people from Ohio are in the hospital today. For comparison, in mid-December, more than 5,300 were hospitalized," Abrams said Wednesday. The next day, that number had fallen even further, to 2,252 hospitalizations.
More than 11,500 Ohioans have died from COVID-19 so far.
