FREMONT — Sandusky County Public Health has the new Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 booster shots in stock and will be administering them at the health department’s Wednesday and Thursday vaccine clinics.
Bethany Brown, Sandusky County’s health commissioner, said Thursday the new boosters, which recently were updated with the omicron variant in mind., can be given to residents who have had the two primary series of COVID vaccine shots.
Brown said the booster shots have to be administered at least two months after a resident’s last vaccine dose was taken.
She said she not aware of any of the local hospitals in Sandusky County administering vaccines.
“Really, it’s just the pharmacies and us. I don’t know which pharmacies have the new boosters,” Brown said.
The county health department has vaccination clinics Wednesdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Thursdays from 3 to 6 p.m.
A little more than 55% of Sandusky County residents have received at last the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. That is well below Ohio’s statewide total of 63.8%.
Sandusky County has had 210 reported COVID cases since Sept. 1, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
The county has had three COVID-related hospitalizations and no deaths in that time period.
Brown said officials at the county’s health department continue to believe there is an underreporting of case numbers, with some residents testing positive after using at-home test kits as opposed to getting a positive result at a doctor’s office or someplace that would officially report it.
The county health department has a limited supply of the new COVID booster shots and is currently out of the at-home testing kits.
The new COVID-19 booster shots were updated with the omicron variant in mind.
Brown said in August the county expected a surge in the coming months based on COVID-19 trends from the past two years, where case numbers rose sharply in the fall through December and January.
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