U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, center, talks to Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown and city Health Commissioner Erin Bishop during a Thursday visit to the Covelli Centre, which is being used by the city as a COVID-19 vaccination site. Staff photo / David Skolnick

YOUNGSTOWN — With the number of people in the state getting COVID-19 vaccines slowing down, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown urged Ohioans to get inoculated.

“Most people I know that haven’t gotten vaccines have some fear about it, and there’s no real evidence out there that people should be afraid of this vaccine,” Brown said Thursday after a visit to the Covelli Centre, where the Youngstown City Health District had a COVID-19 vaccination clinic.

Brown, D-Ohio, said the number of people wanting the vaccine is down nationally.

“There’s still lots of people who need to get vaccinated,” he said. “There’s no question getting vaccinated is safe. There’s no question this vaccine is effective. We’ll never get our economy back operating on all cylinders until we get most everybody vaccinated. That’s our mission.”

More than one-third of the state’s population has received the vaccine.

About one-third of the population is waiting to see how their friends, family, co-workers and others react to the vaccine before getting it themselves, he said. The rest need more convincing, he said.

“We’re going to be persistent until enough people are vaccinated,” Brown said.

The city has vaccinated about 26,000 people in the past three-plus months, and used to give as many as 800 shots at clinics, Erin Bishop, Youngstown health commissioner, said. The Thursday clinic at the Covelli Centre had about 75 people, she said.

Gov. Mike DeWine visited the same location April 22. During that visit, DeWine, a Republican, expressed concern about the slowdown in the number of Ohioans being vaccinated.

VACCINATIONS

There were 4,786,481 people, 40.95 percent of the state’s population, who had at least started getting inoculated as of 6 a.m. Thursday, including 34,070 in the previous 24 hours, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

In Mahoning County, 40.41 percent of the population (92,406 people) had received at least one dose with 38.59 percent of the population in Trumbull County (76,402 people) and 32.85 percent in Columbiana County (33,470 people) as of 6 a.m. Thursday, according to the ODH.

There were 4,004,082 people, 34.25 percent of the state’s population,who finished the vaccinations as of 6 a.m. Thursday, including 58,871 in the prior 24 hours.

In Mahoning County, 34.33 percent of the population (78,516 people) had completed the process while 31.94 percent of the population in Trumbull (63,232 people) and 28.53 percent of the population in Columbiana (29,070 people) had as of 6 a.m. Thursday.

COVID-19 DATA

The 1,387 new cases reported Thursday was down from the daily average of 1,524 for the past 21 days, according to the ODH.

The state had a total of 1,080,121 COVID-19 cases as of Thursday with 1,030,305 presumed recovered.

The ODH provides death information on Tuesday and Friday. There were 19,344 deaths as of Tuesday.

Mahoning County had 21,474 total cases as of Thursday with 20,262 presumed recovered and 586 deaths, according to the ODH.

Trumbull County had 15,996 total COVID-19 cases as of Thursday with 15,068 presumed recovered and 466 deaths.

Columbiana County had 8,756 total COVID-19 cases as of Thursday with 8,322 presumed recovered and 229 deaths.

CASES PER 100,000 PEOPLE

The number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 state residents has declined for the third straight week.

The number of cases per 100,000 in Ohio was 140.2 Thursday.

It was 155.6 last Thursday; 185.8 two weeks ago; 200 per 100,000 on April 15; 183.7 on April 8, 167.1 per 100,000 on April 1; and 146.9 per 100,000 on March 25.

DeWine announced March 4 that he would lift all COVID-19 pandemic health orders if the state got to as few as 50 cases per 100,000. To reach that number, the state would need to average no more than 417 cases per day for a two-week period. That hasn’t happened since last June.

But Thursday’s rate is the lowest it has been since mid-October, according to ODH.

Mahoning has the 17th-highest rate among the state’s 88 counties at 150.9 cases per 100,000. Trumbull has the 30th-highest rate at 129.8 and Columbiana has the 32nd-most at 128.6 cases per 100,000.

Also, Mahoning and Trumbull counties continue to be at Level 3 (red) counties on the Ohio Public Health Advisory System. That is one level below the highest (purple) and where the two counties have been for months.

Columbiana County stayed at Level 2 (orange) for the seventh straight week.

dskolnick@tribtoday.com

dskolnick@vindy.com