Belmont County residents await their COVID-19 vaccinations Wednesday at a clinic in the Ohio Valley Mall. People wishing to be vaccinated should visit the website gettheshot.coronavirus.ohio. T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont County Deputy Health Director Robert Sproul said his staff administered shots to all residents who had been on a waiting list for COVID-19 vaccinations, and now people wanting to be inoculated should visit gettheshot.coronavirus.ohio.

His staff is again vaccinating people in the former Sears store at the Ohio Valley Mall this week, with 700 shots scheduled Wednesday, and 600 Thursday.

“This will complete our list. We’ve been registering people with our phone numbers and online. This will be the last,” he said. “We’ve called everybody on our list. … It will be the statewide system scheduled going forward.”

Sproul said his department has vaccinated thousands of people.

He does not have an exact number from the state, but he believes more than 6,000 Belmont County residents have received either a first or a first and second shot.

“To get this 1,300 we probably called close to 3,000 people. We had volunteers come in over the weekend and help us reach out to people,” Sproul said. “We called every single person. Some people we left voicemails for, so we’re hoping they show up. We can’t control if they don’t. They didn’t call us back to remove them from the list.”

He said his office expects another 1,000 Moderna version vaccines next week, all for first doses. A second dose is necessary after about 29 days.

“We’re getting more and more doses, and we’re putting them out,” he said.

Vaccinations will continue, since the age-range of eligibility has expanded.

“The governor dropped it down to 50 and above starting (today), adding more health conditions to the system, more people to the system that are eligible for the vaccines,” he said.

He said his office is now receiving the new Johnson & Johnson version of the vaccine as well. It requires only one dose instead of the two necessary for the Moderna and Pfizer BioNTech versions.

Weekly vaccination clinics at the Ohio Valley Mall will continue for five more weeks. If the weather continues to improve, Sproul said his office may reinstitute drive-through clinics.

“The public likes those,” he said. “We have a lot of volunteers, which is great. It helps us run very, very smoothly.”

Sproul also indicated the county is seeing fewer new cases weekly.

Sproul reported there have been 5,388 confirmed cases in the county since the pandemic’s onset, with 180 people isolated at home with active cases and 65 hospitalized.

“That’s only up nine from (Tuesday),” he said. “Our numbers have been staying low, which is great. I hope it continues that way.”

There have been 5,042 recoveries, and there have been 101 deaths associated with the virus.

“We’re going through our shots. This week should be the end of our list,” he said. “The state has a vaccine management system that we’re going to be moving to. When we get our doses, we’ll upload into this system.”

Sproul said this will be the same for all providers in the county.

“Anybody can log in, pull it up, and click on whichever location they want to go to. It’ll let them know how many doses they have available and give them time slots so they can reserve their spot,” he said.

“It’ll list the pharmacies, too. If you go on that website, it’ll show Riesbeck’s, it’ll show Kroger, it’ll show Barnesville Hospital, it’ll show Ohio Hills, and as they add more providers on, that’s where they will be placed into, so you can log in and set up your appointment,” Sproul said. “It’ll be very efficient, very quick. We won’t have the issue with the phone calls.”

He said more providers may be added as more vaccines are available.

Among those at the vaccination clinic Wednesday were Charlie and Mary Webster of Belmont.

“I originally got on the list Feb. 2, so it’s taken quite a while to get to this point,” Charlie Webster said.

Pam Bennett of St. Clairsville said she was scheduled to receive a vaccination Wednesday. She and her husband have found a different provider.

“I wasn’t able to get an appointment anywhere, so I ended up having to go to the Rite Aid website. I’m having it at Rite Aid at Cambridge,” she said. “The process itself hasn’t been easy.”

She said her husband had been attempting to schedule a vaccination since Feb. 10. She eventually found a pharmacy in Ohio and arranged an appointment for both of them.

“I miss my family. I want to be able to hug my mom and dad, my father-in-law, my kids and my grandchildren,” Bennett said. “We did not have a Thanksgiving together, a Christmas together. We did a Zoom Christmas and a Zoom Thanksgiving.”