Summit County Health Director Rich Bullough gave a brief COVID-19 update to Summit County’s Council of Governments on Tuesday night.
He raised the question—just how long will the county’s mandatory mask order be in place?
The short answer—don’t throw away your face shield anytime soon.
During the virtual meeting, Bullough noted that the mask order was recently extended.
He said he doesn’t anticipate the order will be lifted until a significant proportion of the population is vaccinated. And Bullough added he doesn’t have any special knowledge about when a vaccine might appear.
“You’ve all been reading the press, just like I have,” he said. “I don’t have any inside information. I’m on a weekly call with the state. That’s pretty much the only inside information I have. And what they’ve told us is consistent with generally what you’re hearing in the press. And that is that we may have approved vaccines by the end of the year, perhaps shortly after, so the first part of 2021. There have been some complications in some of the trials, that you’ve probably heard about.”
He also talked about how a vaccine might roll out in Summit County.
“In Summit County, we are literally only expecting about 300 vaccines,” Bullough said. “And those vaccines will go to First Responders and medical providers. So we’re gonna triage the way that we approach this. I don’t anticipate that we will be in the full throes of mass vaccinations until mid-to-late winter. And I honestly believe that it’s gonna be spring to mid-summer before we’re really to a place where we have a significant proportion vaccinated. So that’s probably not the news you wanna hear, but I think that’s the most accurate information I have.”
