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Findlay Mayor Attends White House Vaccine Summit

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Findlay Mayor Christina Muryn was in Washington D.C. this week for The White House Vaccine Summit.

Details are in the following news release from the City of Findlay.

Mayor Christina Muryn participated in The White House Vaccine Summit. Mayor Muryn joined five Mayors from across the country along with Governors Abbott, Edwards, DeSantis, and Lee, leaders from the private sector and Operation Warp Speed leadership. The goal of the Vaccine Summit was to Build Understanding, Build Confidence, and Recognize Achievement related to the unprecedented development of a COVID-19 vaccine. The program included four hours of material. The program outline is below.
The full Summit can be accessed at https://fb.watch/2gRUNuA2k7/.

“As the conversation around a COVID-19 vaccine grows, it is vital that Federal, State, and Local leaders work together to communicate accurate information about the timing, safety, and access around the vaccine. The summit provided additional behind the scenes information on how our nation has gotten to this point so quickly, how we are prepared to safely roll out the vaccine, and the public-private partnerships that will be critical in equitably and effectively distributing the vaccine. Over the last number of months, Federal, State, and Local leaders have been working together to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Our communities have largely seen the mitigation efforts that we have been taking to decrease the overall number of cases. While that has been a huge focus, we are also working tirelessly to get our communities open, support our economy, and prepare for these vaccines. Now that a vaccine is expected in the next week or two, we are ready to put our plans in action to roll out the Ohio Vaccination plan. Hancock Public Health and I have been in regular conversations with the Ohio Department of Health and Governor DeWine’s Office on how we will make the vaccine available locally. As soon as we know the number of vaccines we will receive in the first shipment, we will begin to execute the plans in place,” said Mayor Muryn

“One of the most fascinating points to me was the explanations by Dr. Moncef Slaoui, a foremost expert in vaccinations on how the COVID-19 vaccines have been able to be developed in such an expedited fashion compared to other vaccines. That has certainly been one of my largest questions, and something I have heard from a number of community members,” said Mayor Christina Muryn. In short given the governments willingness to bring together a cross sector team and commit to funding it allowed the manufacturers to run testing in parallel rather than the linear process they typically follow.

Additionally, Dr. Slaoui stated that the industry was able to cut the front end of the discovery process from years to weeks utilizing platform technologies. “Imagine a cassette player. It plays classic music if you play a classic music tape, and it plays rock and roll if you put in a rock and roll tape. 99% of cassette players are of course the same and only the tape changes and you have a very different outcome. It is the same with vaccines. Platform technologies are a means by which you can produce a vaccine that induces the right immune responses and you put in a different cassette in it to produce a different vaccine against a different virus.” He goes on to say that, “When we knew, as the industry and academia, what the virus is and its sequence, companies were able to take that sequence, plug it in the cassette player of their platform technology and be into the clinic within two months from the discovery of the virus. This is where, I would say, we cut most of the time.”

Dr. Slaoui stated that the Administration expects 20 million Americans to be able to be vaccinated by end of 2020, 30 million in January, and 50 million Americans in February.

The Ohio Department of Healths Vaccination Plan has a 4 Phase Distribution Plan.

Phase 1a: (~ 1.3MM Ohioans) Healthcare Workers, EMS Responders, Resident and Staff at nursing homes, assisted living facilities, psychiatric hospitals. Individuals, and those who work with individuals that have disabilities, in group homes or centers.

Phase 1b: (~4.5MM Ohioans) Essential Workers including lower exposure First Responders and High Risk Citizens

Phase 1c: (~.5MM Ohioans) 65+ Year Olds

Phase 2: (~100k Ohioans) Other Older Adults

Phase 3: (~4MM Ohioans) Young Adults

Phase 4: (~1.3MM Ohioans) All Remaining

The target for herd immunity is 60-70% of the population either receiving the vaccination or having the antibodies from having exposure to the virus. In Hancock County that means approximately 52,050 based off a population of 75,783. At this time, the Ohio Department of Health is estimating that 10% of Ohioans have already been exposed and have the antibodies. Therefore, locally we are hoping to have 47,744 individuals choose to be vaccinated. This is not a mandated vaccination. It will be available to those who want it as each of the phases is executed.