In Ohio, as of Monday, about 21 percent of adults in the state had received at least one shot and 12 percent were totally vaccinated, according to a Times database.
Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, announced the expanded eligibility on Tuesday, as well as a goal of working up to administering 6,000 shots a day across the state in the coming days, an increase over the 1,500 shots a day he said the state is currently administering. Ohio will make vaccines eligible to all Ohio residents 16 years and older on March 29.
With the expanded criteria, Mr. DeWine said another 1.5 million Ohio residents will be eligible for the vaccine on Friday. He also said a new Federal Emergency Management Agency mass vaccination site, the Cleveland State University’s Wolstein Center, would handle shots for more than 200,000 people over the next eight weeks.
Putting a mass vaccination site on Cleveland State’s campus, Mr. DeWine said, was a deliberate move, given its proximity to some underserved neighborhoods. Mr. DeWine said free transportation to and from the Wolstein Center would be provided. He added that he and Mr. Biden have made equity a priority in vaccine distribution plans, a concern that is shared by officials across the country who worry about fully understanding the extent of the problem because of missing data on race and ethnicity.
In early March, less than 5 percent of Ohio’s Hispanic population and less than 10 percent of the state’s Black population had been vaccinated, according to a Times analysis. Communities of color across the country have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic and have faced obstacles to accessing vaccines, in some cases because of a lack of reliable internet access, as well as inflexible work schedules. In early March, the vaccination rate for Black people across the country was half of the rate for white people.
“I want to thank the president, President Biden, for making this site available to us,” Mr. DeWine said during a news conference on Tuesday.
Despite the praise from Mr. DeWine, Mr. Biden continues to face vaccine resistance from some Republicans across the country. A third of Republicans who participated in a recent CBS News poll said that they would not be vaccinated. And another 20 percent of Republicans said they were unsure.
