MANSFIELD — Richland County could reach herd immunity against COVID-19 by the start of the 2021-2022 school year, Richland Public Health Commissioner Sarah Humphrey said Tuesday.
Humphrey estimated the county could reach a 70 percent vaccination rate by late August if participation remains high. She attributed this scenario largely to the influx of vaccination doses after the approval of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
“The rollout has been pretty smooth. We’ve gotten into a cadence that’s pretty manageable,” Humphrey said.
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Most medical experts believe that herd immunity is reached when 70 percent of people are protected against a virus. As of Tuesday, nearly 18 percent of Richland County residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the state’s COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard.
This includes approximately 60 percent of residents 80 and older.
Governor Mike DeWine announced that vaccine eligibility will be expanded on Friday and again on March 29.
Ohioans ages 40 and up will be eligible for the vaccine starting Friday, as well as Ohioans of any age with cancer, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease or obesity.
“Each week the governor talks with the local health department commissioners and kind of takes a pulse of the overall state,” said Sarah Goodwill Humphrey, health commissioner at Richland Public Health.
“Even though it sounds like some counties still have the older populations to reach, for the most part we’ve gotten to a point where people have the availability and appointments where we can continue to lower the age. So that was pretty exciting.”
Humphrey said that based on the call, she believed vaccine allotments for providers across the county will continue to increase throughout the month.
Reed Richmond of Richland Public Health confirmed the county health department would begin vaccinations for Phase 1E and Phase 2C individuals as early as Friday. Eligible individuals can call 866-395-1588 to schedule an appointment.
Humphrey added that developing herd immunity is not a one-time act — herd immunity will have to be maintained by keeping the community vaccination rate at 70 percent or higher.
If future generations choose not to get the vaccine, outbreaks could eventually return.
“At one time we had nearly eradicated measles in the U.S., but then vaccine fatigue occurred, (vaccination rates) dropped and we lost our herd immunity,” she explained. “For several years since we’ve battled pop-up outbreaks across the U.S.”
Richmond, an educator at Richland Public Health, said health officials are seeing some vaccine resistance among people in the 30 to 50 age range. He encouraged younger individuals to get the vaccine to help stop the spread of the virus.
“The vaccine is free for everyone and the more people we can get vaccinated the better off we are as a nation. It’s kind of a civic responsibility thing,” he said. “Measles, polio, mumps those are the kinds of things that we’ve practically eliminated in this country because people got vaccinated.”
In addition to slowing the spread of the virus, high vaccination rates also help curb future variants of the virus, Richmond said.
The Ohio Department of Health will be sending a mobile clinic to Mansfield and north central Ohio in the near future, but a date has yet to be announced.
Richmond said he hopes the mobile clinic will visit more remote villages in the area like Plymouth and Shiloh. He also said that RPH has the capability to conduct its own mobile clinics in those areas later in the year.
“That’s something that we can do out in the rural communities, if that’s something there’s a demand for in the summer,” he said.
