Gov. Mike DeWine on Tuesday said the state will keep its roster of people eligible for the coronavirus vaccine at age 65 and older for the foreseeable future in order to make sure "the most vulnerable in the state of Ohio" are vaccinated before moving on to another group. DeWine declined to give a date of when he would announce the next group in line to receive the vaccine.
"People have a right to be impatient, but be persistent, hang in, we're going to stay at this age until we feel we have a large number of people at this age vaccinated," he said in response to a reporter's question about when more Ohioans could expect to see "the light at the end of the tunnel."
He said the state is still looking at when to set a date for the next group of eligible Ohioans, which he also did not detail. "Over 700 groups have sent us letters and indicated they want to go next and so we're trying to go through that and weigh that," he said.
DeWine first announced he would hold the vaccine rollout at age 65 on Feb. 8 in order to vaccinate the 2.2 million people in what's known as Group 1B. That group also includes teachers and school staff, some of which have come under fire from the governor and others for not upholding an agreement to have schools back in some form of in-person learning by March 1 in order to have their staff vaccinated.
At the time, DeWine said the state was committing about 100,000 doses a week for seniors and diverting the rest to teachers just for the month of February.
Additional reporting by Andy Chow.
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