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Rebecca Meeker, left at Crown Pointe Care Center, receives a COVID-19 vaccine from Dr. Kate Latta, PharmD, in Columbus, Ohio.
AP
About 60 percent of nursing home workers in Ohio have chosen not to use the COVID-19 vaccine so far as the number of deaths related to the coronavirus has skyrocketed in the state.
“We’re not going to make them, but we wish they had higher compliance,” Ohio government Mike DeWine said of the nursing home staff at a news conference Wednesday, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
“Everyone makes their own choice about this, but we want to make it clear that the opportunity may not come back for a while,” said the governor.
The high number of nursing home workers who choose not to take the vaccine is because the state has lived through the deadliest month of the pandemic.
Ohio reported 2,426 deaths from COVID-19 in December, the report said. In total, more than 8,800 people in the state have died of the disease since the start of the pandemic.