Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Millions of vaccinated Ohioans — including hundreds of thousands of vulnerable elderly residents — are eligible for a COVID-19 booster shot but have not gotten one.
Public health and medical experts say boosters are a powerful tool to cut down on hospitalization, death and transmission, especially among the at-risk and elderly.
A recent study from the AARP found Ohio was one of the worst states for booster shots in nursing homes — where 44% of residents are boosted — during the same period the state was No. 1 for nursing home resident deaths per capita.
Dr. Glen Solomon, the chair of the internal medicine and neurology department at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine, said people should absolutely get boosted.
“People are just tired of the pandemic, and pandemic fatigue has just made people less enthusiastic about going and making the effort to get their booster dose,” he said. “And that’s a huge mistake with omicron, because two doses of an mRNA vaccine is really not effective against omicron. But if you throw in that third dose, we’re talking about 95% vaccine efficacy against severe disease. So with this widely spreading omicron, the booster really makes a difference and it works very quickly.”
