EATON — Preble County EMA Director Dave Anderson updated the Preble County Board of Commissioners on the county’s vaccination progress during their meeting on Wednesday, March 17.
As Anderson had previously reported during a Feb. 17 meeting with the commissioners, Preble County has yet to waste a single vaccine.
“I’ve also been assisting the health department with planning, setup and operation of the vaccine clinics,” he said. “They’ve been doing a really fantastic job. Again, I like to report there have been no wasted doses.”
There had been a misunderstanding one evening with a number of doses left over after a vaccination clinic, but the EMA and the health department worked to find people who could come in and receive the vaccine.
“We had to call people, have them come in and we waited on them,” Anderson said. “We’re being very diligent with making sure that stuff gets done.”
Anderson said the county, as well as Medical Reserve Corps that are assisting with vaccinations, have done “a great job.”
“If it wasn’t for them, [the county] would be in trouble,” he said. “Hats off not only to the health department, but also to their volunteers.”
Once vaccinations open up for everyone in Ohio age 16 or older on March 29, Anderson said he hopes the county begins receiving more doses.
“As long as we can keep getting doses in, they’re going to keep putting them out, there’s a real good chance that we’ll start getting 700 [doses] as a regular number,” he said. “It just depends on what they have. We don’t usually know about it until a few days before, sometimes not quite the week before, so it’s kind of hard to plan, but I think they’re doing a great job keeping up with all of it.”
Anderson also reported that the EMA is looking for alternatives to store personal protection equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers.
“In the last several months, evidently, the supply chains are starting to get better on getting PPE to the first responders in the county,” he said. “The other thing, too, is the state has decided they are going to quit doing the scheduled pushes of PPE out because a lot of the counties in the state of Ohio decided they don’t need anymore; they’ve got a good supply. We have a good supply.”
The problem, Anderson continued, is the offices of EMA and the health department are both full, already storing PPE.
“Just wondering if [the commissioners] could either find one for us or if you know someplace that we might be able to store the PPE,” he asked. “Who knows how long it’s going to be that it will sit there, so there needs to be something that can be kind of forever.”
Additionally, Anderson said EMA will be working on upcoming events in the county, including Bridges, Bikes and Blues and the Downtown Eaton Inc. Car Show.
“The good thing is its kind of looking things are going to start getting back to somewhat normal..it looks like we’re going to be a little more active this year than we were last year because we only did one, which was the Car Show, and it was still kind of shaky, but I’m glad everything worked out,” he said. “People that I have are kind of older people, and at that time the vaccine wasn’t developed yet and everything, but I made sure they had PPE and that they were somewhat safe.”
