Lucas County now offering walk-in options for coronavirus vaccines

Apr. 16—With coronavirus infections in the community increasing and vaccine uptake appearing to lull, the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department is hoping walk-in clinics might turn things around.

"Hesitancy we know is going to be there throughout the process..." Lucas County Health Commissioner Eric Zgodzinski said. "But we know that there's other individuals who do want to get vaccinated but there are barriers, and those barriers we're going to try to knock down even further."

The first walk-in clinic is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday at the Lucas County Rec Center in Maumee. This clinic will provide only Pfizer doses, which are available to any resident age 16 or older.

A second walk-in clinic is scheduled for the same time and place on Saturday and will provide only the Moderna vaccine, which has only been approved for those 18 and older.

The health department is also launching a standing walk-in clinic at its downtown location, 635 N. Erie St., from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each week day.

Residents may still schedule appointment times at gettheshot.coronavirus.ohio.gov for any of the locations, or they may show up at their convenience.

Wood County previously announced it is accepting walk-ins at all scheduled clinics, a goal Mr. Zgodzinski said he hopes Lucas County to reach within the next few weeks.

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Mr. Zgodzinski said he hopes easier access to the shots may be able to boost compliance by another 10 to 15 percent, but with only 36 percent of the county currently vaccinated, it would still leave Lucas short of the 70 percent goal experts say is needed to achieve herd immunity.

The latest data on the state's vaccine dashboard shows 154,556 first-doses have been administered in Lucas County, accounting for about 36 percent of the population. Another 54,445 doses have been given in Wood County, or about 41.62 percent of its population.

Unlike in previous months, vaccine supply is no longer an issue, Mr. Zgodzinski said.

The county is expected to have close to 15,000 doses next week, and come mid-May, Pfizer and Moderna doses are expected to be even more widely available.

"We're not going to run out of vaccine," he said.

But there is concern about getting enough people to take it.

Hesitancy over vaccine safety, potential side effects, and concerns over political motivations have left some residents adamant that they will not accept the vaccine.

It's too early to tell if the decision to pause the use of the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine while authorities investigate six cases of unusual blood clots in women who received it might also cause a chilling effect. It's something the department said it plans to watch for.

In the meantime, staff are hoping that efforts to move away from mass vaccination sites in favor of smaller neighborhood clinics or those hosted by area businesses for employees and their families might boost compliance. Businesses looking to host a clinic can visit the department's website to fill out a questionnaire.

Overall, Mr. Zgodzinski maintained that when it comes to vaccinations, "we're doing pretty good," but it hasn't been enough to stop cases and hospitalizations from rising.

The county reported 151 new coronavirus cases on Thursday; deaths remained unchanged at 803 because they are not updated daily. The county was also number one in the state for a high incident rate, with 341 cases per 100,000 population.

Mr. Zgodzinski believes two of the more contagious variants circulating in the community may be to blame for the rising numbers. The county is aware of 11 known cases of the variant from the United Kingdom, and two from California.

The more people who get vaccinated, the less impact the variants can have, he said.

"We really need to make sure the community understands we're not out of this yet," Mr. Zgodzinski said. "You need to get vaccinated, you need to take precautions to make sure you don't spread this."

First Published April 15, 2021, 3:36pm