COLUMBUS (AP) — Governor Mike DeWine says the rollout of an online vaccine appointment scheduling tool is still two to three weeks away as the state recruits providers such as pharmacies, hospitals, health clinics and others.
Once the tool is live, Ohioans can enter their zip code and find appointments within 20 miles.
DeWine said at his Tuesday afternoon coronavirus briefing that the goal is for residents to have a positive customer experience once the tool is launched.
Ohio and approximately 40 other states chose not to use the centralized system that the federal government intended to develop and built its own centralized scheduling system, which was completed on schedule, DeWine said.
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The state is also working with groups such as the Area Agencies on Aging to help Ohioans who don’t have Internet access scheduled coronavirus vaccines.
Currently 1.3 million Ohioans, or 11% of the population, have received their initial doses of the vaccine and 494,754 have received both doses, equal to 4.23% of the state’s total population.
The state reported 2,026 new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday, bringing the total number of Ohioans diagnosed with the disease since the pandemic began to 943,291.
There were 59 newly reported deaths as the coronavirus has now claimed 16,453 lives in the state.
An additional 104 hospital admissions were reported, bringing the total number of Ohioans hospitalized with the virus to 49,739. There were 1,566 patients in hospitals currently, occupying 5.72% of the beds statewide.
The number of active cases fell to 59,211, the lowest number in over three months.
The seven-day positivity rate was 5%.