By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Wood County Health Department can once again take the COVID vaccine to “homebound” residents unable to make the trip themselves to get the shot.
Approximately 50 senior citizens will have special delivery of the vaccine on Saturday. The home visits to homebound seniors will be fit in with vaccine clinics, as the shots and staffing are available.
“We’ll find time when we can do this throughout the weeks,” Wood County Health Commissioner Ben Robison said Friday morning. “Our goal is to work with this population.”
Home-delivered vaccines are tricky for multiple reasons. First, each vial of the Pfizer vaccine has six doses, which have to be used within six hours after the vial is punctured.
“We’re getting the doses into arms within that six-hour window,” Robison said.
Plus, the staff cannot just give the shot, then leave for the next senior citizen’s home. The staff must observe the person for 20 minutes or so to make sure there are no adverse reactions to the vaccine.
In order to reach clusters of people living in the same geographic area, the health department has broken the county into five sections of north, south, east, west and central.
Working with the Wood County Committee on Aging, the health department is being connected with people in the Meals on Wheels program who need the vaccine delivered to their homes.
“We already have a captive audience of people determined to be homebound,” said Denise Niese, executive director of the Wood County Committee on Aging.
The vast majority of the seniors contacted by the Wood County Committee on Aging have already received at least their first vaccines, with assistance from family or neighbors, Niese said.
To qualify for the home-delivered vaccines, residents must meet the definition of homebound, which means that they cannot leave their homes under normal circumstances or without assistance from others.
“This is for people with significant mobility issues,” Niese said. “These people really do have challenges. It’s very important that this population be serviced.”
While the Wood County Committee on Aging has access to the nearly 800 people who use the Meals on Wheels service, Niese said there are other seniors out there who are very isolated right now.
“This is a vulnerable population, hidden in our community,” she said.
Those people may contact the Wood County Committee on Aging at 419-353-5661 to see if they qualify for the home-delivered vaccines.
Local EMS personnel and Medical Reserve Corps volunteers are helping with the home vaccinations, Robison said.
“We’re going to work through this as quickly as we can,” he said.
The health department provided home-delivered vaccinations earlier this year – but then discontinued the process after the Ohio Department of Health asked that providers stop until more testing could be done on transporting open vaccine vials.
The Centers for Disease Control and ODH have since reversed that advisory, and are now allowing vaccines to be delivered directly to homebound individuals.
“We’ve wanted to do this all along,” Robison said.
Wood County’s COVID cases continue to slow – with the county currently at 130 cases per 100,000 people. Once below 100 cases per 100,000, the county can be removed from the “Red Level.”
“We are within striking distance of turning orange,” Robison said.
But Robison cautioned that people need to continue wearing masks and maintaining social distance from others.
“This is the time to continue our efforts,” he said. “We don’t want to get over confident.”
