vax
Activists want anti-vaccine amendment in Ohio Constitution
State politicians advanced an effort Tuesday to place anti-vaccination language onto a general election ballot, which would leave the fate of vaccine mandates in Ohio in voters’ hands. If passed, Ohio would become the only state in the nation with an explicit ban of vaccine mandates in its constitution. It would mark a major step […]
Ohio Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit targeting vaccine lottery
The Ohio Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit Thursday that alleged the state’s COVID-19 vaccine lottery program was an illegal spend and that mask mandates violate a Holocaust-era ethics doctrine around experiments with human subjects. The court dismissed the suit on legal grounds like standing and jurisdiction and left alone the vaccine conspiracy theories that undergirded […]
Ohio House restarts efforts to ban vaccine mandates; Dem calls it ‘pandering’
It’s déjà vu all over again, but with longer hearings this time. An Ohio House committee is meeting twice this week to take a scheduled 14 hours of testimony on legislation to ban vaccine mandates — the eighth and ninth such legislative hearings, now occurring under a second House committee. An initial, expansive version of […]
Ohio House GOP bill would ban vaccine mandates and shield COVID-19 spreaders from lawsuits
An Ohio House Republican proposed legislation Monday that would shield COVID-19 spreaders from lawsuits and ban vaccine mandates for primary education and college students. Rep. Kyle Koehler, R-Springfield, introduced the bill as people infected with the hyper transmissible delta variant crowd area hospitals and Ohio’s vaccination rate sags far below the national average. House Bill […]
History Thursday: When the Supreme Court said yes to vaccine mandates
The vaccine mandate debate may be rejuvenated, but it’s hardly new. The U.S. Supreme Court answered the can-they-do-that question more than 115 years ago. In an era when infectious diseases killed more Americans than any other cause of death, smallpox was ripping through Cambridge, Massachusetts. State lawmakers passed a statute allowing local boards of health, […]
Fewer than 1 in 2 vaccinated against COVID-19 in most Ohio counties
In 66 of Ohio’s 88 counties, fewer than 1 in 2 residents have received at least one dose of vaccination against COVID-19, which has killed more than 661,000 Americans since the pandemic began. The low vaccination coverage, found via an analysis of state data from Sunday, indicates vast swaths of the state remain vulnerable to […]
School vaccine records missing for tens of thousands of Ohio students
School vaccination records were missing or incomplete among roughly 1 in 5 sampled Ohio middle and high school students last year, despite state law requiring local boards of education to track immunizations records of all enrolled students. All Ohio students, per state law, must be vaccinated against mumps, tetanus, polio, measles, Hepatitis B, chicken pox […]
Ohio House rep protests vaccine mandates outside area hospital office
An Ohio House representative joined a protest last week outside a Miamisburg hospital that announced a requirement that caregivers receive vaccination against COVID-19. Rep. Rodney Creech, R-West Alexandria, said he joined the demonstration because vaccines should be a matter of personal choice, and it’s not an employer’s place to require them. In an interview, he […]
COVID vaccination rates jump; new infections wane
The rate of Ohio’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout leapt over the past 10 days, after roughly six weeks of steady decline. The trend likely traces back to a combination of the state’s novel “Vaxamillion” lottery drawings, and the federal government authorizing the use of vaccines on children aged 12-15. Meanwhile, the pace of new infections has […]
Governor’s vaccine lottery rankles state lawmakers
Ohio lawmakers from both parties have rebuked Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s plan to incentivize vaccination against COVID-19 via five $1 million lottery drawings from the pool of vaccinated Ohioans. Republicans, who have repeatedly clashed with DeWine on pandemic policy culminating in their override of his veto of an overhaul of public health laws, bristled at […]
Hourly workers left behind in vaccination push, researcher says
In Woodland Hills, an east Cleveland neighborhood, about 15% of the population has been vaccinated against COVID-19, compared to about 41% statewide. More than 81% of workers in the neighborhood work part-time, seasonal or low wage (below $35,0000 annually) jobs. After comparing vaccine uptake data in Cuyahoga County with the percentage of the population in […]