Health

Low Numbers of Fully Vaccinated People Getting COVID Encourage Ohio Health Leaders

The Statehouse News Bureau | By Jo Ingles

Published April 15, 2021 at 7:21 PM EDT

Nurse gives shot during Franklin County vaccine clinic — A nurse gives shot during a Franklin County vaccine clinic. Primary care physicians in Ohio will begin receiving COVID-19 shots to administer to patients who have not been inoculated.

Ohio is tracking the number of cases of COVID-19 in people who have been fully vaccinated for two weeks or more. And state leaders say those numbers are proving vaccines work.

Gov. Mike DeWine says 154 people who have been fully vaccinated for at least two weeks have come down with COVID-19.

“Of this 154, there have been 14 hospitalizations and there have been zero, zero deaths," DeWine said.

Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff with the Ohio Department of Health says that’s less than 1% of 1%. He says these numbers show the vaccines are more than 95% effective in the real world. State leaders hope Ohioans will look at those rates and realize their chances against COVID are much higher if they are vaccinated.

The median age of those fully vaccinated Ohioans who caught COVID-19 is 62 years old. The ages of the patients range from 19 to 98.

Starting next week, primary care physicians will start to receive vaccines so they can give COVID shots to their patients who have been reluctant to get them at themore than 1,500 shot providersin Ohio so far.