ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Since vaccinations against the COVID-19 pandemic began in Belmont County, senior citizens have filled the health department’s weekly vaccination clinics, but younger recipients are now receiving shots with the goal of slowing the spread of the virus.

On Wednesday afternoon, a line began forming outside the clinic site at the Ohio Valley Mall for individuals’ first doses of COVID-19 vaccination.

“Most of my family is older, and most of my younger friends and family already work in professions that have the vaccine, so I’m the last holdout,” John Edgar, 37, of Martins Ferry said. “As soon as I was able to get the opportunity on the Ohio website, I went ahead and registered and got the earliest one. Whatever vaccine they have, I’ll take it at this point.

“A lot of my family members actually got COVID over the fall, and after hearing firsthand how bad it was, that kind of made me want to get protection for myself and, obviously, protection for others,” he said. “That’s the whole point of everyone getting the vaccine.”

He looks forward to a time when concert venues can reopen with bigger crowds.

“I wanted to do my part to keep everyone safe and stop the spread from getting to people who might be more vulnerable than I am,” Ryan Zacherl, 27, of St. Clairsville said. “I work in tourism. I actually work in Moundsville at the West Virginia Penitentiary. There’s a lot of people who go in and out of there, and there are bus groups that come in with elderly people in them, but really it’s my family as well. It’s gotten to the point where some of my family members, I haven’t seen them in over a year. They’ve all gotten vaccinated. … I wanted to do it to protect not only people that I don’t know, but people that I love.”

Zacherl also looks forward to the lifting of restrictions.

“If we get to the point where we can do live music and traveling and vacations again, that would be amazing,” he said.

Misty Ward, 34, of Martins Ferry works in food service.

“I’m around everybody in the community, so I do my part,” she said. “When it first began, you heard about COVID and you just heard about it, and it came closer and closer it seemed like, as far as the circle closing in. You heard somebody had it in another state or county, (then it was) a friend or a relative that had it, and in some cases ended up with pneumonia, hospitalization, loss of taste, things like that — things you don’t want to sacrifice, so you get the shot and hopefully prevent those types of things.

“Being with family is huge. We eliminated a lot of family gatherings last year,” she said.

“It’s a mix of not spreading it to other people and not catching it ourselves,” said Tyler Sagman, 26, of Martins Ferry, who works in retail. “Most of my family has heart conditions. If they got it, it would have been bad, but we’ve been lucky so far.”

“I am immuno-compromised, so I would rather be safe than sorry,” Shane Dobrovich, 29, of St. Clairsville said. “I work with the public in a retail setting, so it’s better for me to be vaccinated so I don’t accidentally spread the virus to someone who’s a bit worse off than I am.”

He looks forward to traveling and revisiting friends in person.

The Moderna and Pfizer BioNTech versions of the vaccine each require two doses, spaced about a month apart.

Belmont County Deputy Health Director Robert Sproul said people reported for their second doses Wednesday morning. As of Monday, the state had opened up vaccinations to Ohioans 16 and older, but the Pfizer vaccine is the only one cleared for people younger than 18.

Sproul said more younger adults and teenagers are expected to be vaccinated today, since vaccination hours are from noon through 6:30 p.m. so as not to interfere with school or work obligations. This week, Sproul’s office will administer 1,000 Moderna vaccines, and 120 Pfizer doses are ready.

“When we checked (Tuesday) we had over 30 kids (ages) 16 and 17,” he said. “We’re going to get a volume of them coming through today, which is great. We’re also seeing a younger demographic, the under-40 crowd. We’re seeing quite a few of them coming in also.”

Sproul said 5,663 cases have been confirmed in Belmont County residents since the pandemic’s onset. Sproul said the county picked up another 10 cases as of Wednesday, bringing the number of people in isolation at home with active cases to 251 with 74 others hospitalized. Sproul said there have been 5,231 recoveries, and 107 people have died after contracting the virus.

Sproul said the new cases are chiefly infections spread within families.

“It gets one of the family members, and then it’s going through the family,” Sproul said.

His staff continues to trace people who might have had contact with infected people and caught the virus.

“Right now, they’ve been able to keep up with it,” he said. “It hasn’t been a huge number like we’ve had before.”