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Vaccines given at OUE, more planned

T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK Josie Grover, registered nurse working with the Belmont County Health Department, administers a COVID-19 vaccine to Ohio University Eastern Dean David Rohall on Tuesday at the vaccination clinic hosted by the college. Other clinics will be held today at the Salvation Army in Bellaire and at Bellaire High School.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Only nine students were vaccinated at the COVID-19 student vaccination clinic at Ohio University Eastern on Tuesday, but more shots are set to be given today.

Josie Grover, a registered nurse working with the Belmont County Health Department, was on hand Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s slow,” she said. “They were welcome to come.”

The event was part of Gov. Mike DeWine’s initiative to reach out to college students prior to the end of the academic year, when they might travel and potentially spread the virus.

The original plan was to offer the single-shot Johnson & Johnson version of the vaccine, but its use was discontinued for study after reports of rare blood clotting issues in people who received it.

On Tuesday, the two-shot Moderna version of the vaccine was offered instead. Grover, Donielle Flynn, coordinator of campus communications and Dean David Rohall speculated that the lack of Johnson & Johnson vaccine may have discouraged participation. Rohall also suggested that many of the 400 students may have made their own arrangements to be vaccinated.

“We are a commuter campus so we don’t have any people living on campus,” he said. “Everything we’ve done is mostly online, so we don’t have a lot of students on campus at all. It’s just online courses, so they’re not normally coming to campus.”

“The health department’s been doing a fantastic job vaccinating everyone in the county with the clinics,” Flynn said.

“We’ve had several students volunteer to help out with the vaccinations. That tells me they know where they’re doing them,” Rohall said. “I suspect a lot of them were vaccinated. … We all hear rumors of young people thinking that they don’t need to be vaccinated as much as older people, but I don’t know if that’s true.”

“We have an active student body. We have students that are working. We have students that are currently in class,” Flynn said. “End of the semester is really a busy time for students as well. They’re finishing final projects. They’re getting ready for exams.”

Rohall took the opportunity to get vaccinated Tuesday.

More shots are expected to be administered today and Thursday. Belmont County Deputy Health Commissioner Robert Sproul said the health department will be active along the Ohio River to provide opportunities for people with difficulty traveling to the county seat of St. Clairsville.

Grover said the Bellaire Salvation Army and Bellaire High School will host vaccination clinics today with 275 doses available. Grover said more than 70 high school students will be receiving first doses of the Pfizer BioNTech version of the vaccine, which is cleared for recipients younger than 18.

“We’re going down there to help Bellaire,” Grover said.

In addition, the Ohio Valley Mall will host its usual vaccination clinic from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday. Sproul said 800 second doses are due, and 300 first doses are available.

Sproul said Belmont County has had a total of 5,953 cases, with 308 residents currently in isolation at home with active cases or hospitalized. There have been 5,531 recoveries and 114 people have died after contracting the virus.

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