Hundreds of young children start COVID-19 vaccine in the Miami Valley

Locally, the following amount of children 4 and younger have had one dose of the vaccine:

Ohio vaccine providers started receiving the shots last Monday after the U.S. Food and Drug administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved and recommend Pfizer’s vaccine for children 6 months to 4 years old and the Moderna vaccine for ages 6 months to 5.

The Pfizer vaccine is a three-dose series and the Moderna vaccine is two doses.

Nearly 63% of Ohioans have started the coronavirus vaccine and 58.46% of residents have completed it, according to the state health department. More than 7.36 million people in Ohio have received at least one vaccine dose and 6.83 million have finished the series.

About 3.65 million Ohioans got a booster shot and 629,038 people received a second booster, according to ODH.

Ohio added 17,225 coronavirus cases cases in the last week, according to ODH. The state is averaging 16,518 cases a week over the last three weeks.

Coronavirus hospitalizations are continuing to climb in Ohio, but the numbers are a fraction of levels previously reported during the state’s peak during the omicron surge.

As of Thursday, 753 people were hospitalized with COVID in Ohio and 79 were in the state’s ICUs, according to the Ohio Hospital Association.

Of the 753 people hospitalized with the virus, 78 were in west central Ohio — which includes Champaign, Clark, Darke, Greene, Miami, Montgomery, Preble and Shelby counties — and 110 were in southwest Ohio, which consists of Butler, Warren, Hamilton, Adams, Brown, Clermont and Clinton counties.

This represents a 50% increase compared to the number of inpatients with COVID last week and a 239% increase compared to 60 days ago in west central Ohio, according to OHA. Southwest Ohio reported an 11% decrease in the past week but a 100% increase over the last 60 days.

Though the number of ICU patients in both regions has increased recently, it’s at a slower rate than hospitalizations overall.

The 15 COVID patients in southwest Ohio’s ICUs Thursday was a 15% increase from last week and an 88% increase compared to 60 days ago, according to OHA. West central Ohio, which had four ICU patients with the virus, reported a 33% increase in the last week and a 33% increase from 60 days ago.

In the past week the Ohio Department of Health recorded 483 hospitalizations and 32 ICU admissions. The three-week average is 465 hospitalizations and 30 ICU admissions a week.

Since Jan. 1, 2021, there have been 70,372 people hospitalized with COVID in the state who were not fully vaccinated, according to ODH. There have been 4,955 people hospitalized with the virus among the fully vaccinated.

During that same period, there have been 23,943 COVID deaths of people who were not fully vaccinated and 1,286 deaths of people who were vaccinated, according to the state health department.