Childcare, funeral home workers among those now eligible for COVID vaccine

MIAMI VALLEY — Gov. DeWine announced Phase 2 and 1C of the state’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout on Monday. The next vaccination group will be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine starting Wednesday.

Phase 1C includes people who are 60 and older, as well as those with certain medical conditions and jobs.

According to the Ohio Department of Health, Phase 1C includes “approximately 246,000 eligible Ohioans with certain occupations and with certain medical conditions not addressed in previous phases.”

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These are the medical conditions included in the next group:

• Type 1 diabetes
• Pregnant women
• Bone marrow transplant recipients
• ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease)

Occupations within Phase 1C are:

• Childcare services
• Funeral services
• Law enforcement and corrections officers

Thomas Routsong, owner of Routsong Funeral Homes in Kettering and Centerville, is “stoked” to get his staff vaccinated. He said their job can be high-risk for COIVD transmission.

“We have to deal with every single person as if they have COVID and every single body as is they have COVID,” Routsong said. “We don’t want to become the COVID epicenter of Kettering or Centerville and that’s happened in other funeral homes.”

Similar to Routsong, Linda Foster said her staff at the Centerville daycare center, Exploration, are excited to be able to get vaccinated.

“We wondered why we weren’t included in some of the earlier groups and we are very happy we are included now,” said Foster, owner of Exploration.

Cox Media Group