ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine addressed proper storage of COVID-19 vaccines and the need to ensure the shots are equally available to low-income and racially diverse Ohioans.

DeWine referred to an incident of apparent human error Tuesday morning when Walgreens Pharmacy issued a recall for vaccines administered Monday in Ashtabula County and Cleveland.

“This was a case where the vaccine, the temperature was not kept where it should have been,” DeWine said. “No harm to anyone, but these vaccinations will have to be done again.”

He noted that Walgreens has been vaccinating residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. This incident occurred during the ongoing 1B phase of vaccinations, which involves making doses available to Ohioans ages 65 and older. Since this is a large segment of the population, DeWine’s office has staggered it by age brackets, expanding the eligibility in increments of five years each week. Beginning with those Ohioans 80 and older three weeks ago, this week those 70 and older are eligible.

DeWine also addressed concerns about inequality of health care and how the vaccines may be administered.

“The pandemic has highlighted significant inequities in our health care system,” DeWine said. “We’ve seen them throughout the 11 months of the pandemic.”

DeWine added that the state’s vaccine rollout plan has established multiple vaccine providers in each of Ohio’s 88 counties. More information about where the closest providers by ZIP code can be found at coronavirus.ohio.gov.

He said community health centers with available vaccines are in cities and rural areas, as well as “pop-up” vaccination sites. His office is also reaching out to faith communities. The Ohio Department of Health is working to provide transportation options to vaccination sites.

Locally, Belmont County Deputy Health Director Robert Sproul said his office is taking precautions with the storage of doses it receives, whether they are the Moderna version that does not require extreme cold storage or the Pfizer BioNTech version that does.

“All of our vaccine is on a generator so if power would go out, we have a generator that would run it. And we also have an alert system so if the building loses power, I get a call on my phone letting me know the office has lost power,” he said. “We have contracts with different entities that could get our generator back up and running, and we have alternate storage locations we could take the vaccines to in an emergency.”

Sproul said plans remain in place to administer 300 doses of the Moderna vaccine received Monday to seniors 70 and older this week. His staff administered 400 shots during each of the prior two weeks. About 45 percent of Belmont County’s population of about 67,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is aged 65 and older. This comes to more than 30,000 people.

A second dose of the vaccine is required after about 29 days.

Sproul also said his office continues to work with partners to meet transportation needs of those for those who need it. While his staff keeps track of characteristics such as race and sex of the recipients, he did not have the current data at hand Tuesday.

“We’ve been trying to reach out to our partners and again, trying to make it available to anybody and everybody,” he said.

He reported Belmont County has confirmed 4,996 cases among residents since the pandemic’s onset, with 669 isolated at home with active cases. There have been 4,182 recoveries, 54 people are hospitalized with the virus and 91 people have died after being infected. The latest fatality, a woman in her late 60s, was reported Tuesday.

Sproul noted the recoveries seem to be climbing while the number of active cases has decreased from 800 Friday.

“There’s less isolated and more recovered, which is great,” he said.