Coronavirus: Clark County gives health department temporary space at Upper Valley Mall for vaccinations

According to the resolution, the space will be used by the health district to “provide emergency COVID vaccinations, COVID testing and secondary facilities.”

Kyle Trout, communications coordinator for the CCCHD, said the health district is still ironing out the exact details on what the space will be used for. The health district will use the location to administer COVID-19 vaccines to county Emergency Management Service (EMS) personnel next week.

“We are excited for this opportunity to use this temporary space. This will provide a great place for the health department to safely vaccinate Clark County EMS personnel who have opted to get the vaccine,” Trout said. “We are also excited about the potential to scale this operation if the need presents itself.”

Springfield Regional Medical Center was among the first 10 hospitals in Ohio receive the first shipment of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday. The shipment contained 975 doses of the vaccine that will be given first to health care personnel.

Next week local health departments across the state are slated to receive their own vaccines to be given to EMS personnel, according to the Ohio Department of Health vaccine roll-out plan.

Large pharmacy chains, like CVS and Walgreens, will also begin giving vaccines to long-term care facility staff and residents next week.

“This unused space provides an opportunity to administer vaccines that will protect our healthcare workers and first responders,” Commission President Melanie Flax Wilt said. “We are all anxious to enhance our community-wide immunity so that we can move on with our lives.”

Clark County had 7,697 cases, 187 deaths and five probable deaths of the coronavirus as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the ODH.

Ohio’s daily coronavirus case count dipped below 6,000 for the first time in weeks on Wednesday. However, ODH says technical issues may have resulted in lower cases number.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, the state reported 5,409 new cases and 123 new deaths, according to ODH. In total, Ohio had 584,766 cases and 7,777 deaths of the coronavirus as of Wednesday.