Ohio still plagued by virus surge | News, Sports, Jobs

A record 1 in every 46 Ohioans was diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past two weeks, with the Ohio Department of Health’s director saying the virus “will be a part of our health care landscape for the foreseeable future.”

Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, head of the ODH, said Thursday despite “signs of improvement in some of Ohio’s first and hardest-hit areas of this historic and record-shattering surge of COVID-19 cases,” people shouldn’t “breathe such a sigh of relief that they think this is entirely over. We’re still dealing with this surge. COVID-19 is not going away.”

It was the sixth consecutive week that Ohio hit a record high number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents.

The rate of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana, however, were among the lowest in the state. Also, Mahoning and Trumbull had declines in cases compared to last week.

STATEWIDE

The 2,154.8 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents for the period between Dec. 30 and Wednesday is up from 1,883.8 cases last week, according to ODH data reported Thursday.

It’s a 14.4 percent increase from last week.

“The demand for health care services is at an all-time high across the state, and relief is still essential to meeting Ohioans’ health care needs,” Vanderhoff said.

Part of the increase can be attributed to the ODH reporting record-high COVID-19 cases last Friday and Saturday as a result of its inability to keep an accurate case count with the coronavirus at an unprecedented level.

Vanderhoff tried to downplay the problems, saying, “When you’re at astronomical levels of spread (of more than 20,000 daily COVID-19 cases), you’re at astronomical levels of spread. A few thousand cases are not going to change that calculus.”

He said knowing the exact number of COVID-19 cases each day at this level “isn’t something that really has any impact whatsoever on our ability to understand what was happening or what responses needed to occur.”

The ODH reported 21,664 new cases Thursday. More than 18,000 new cases have been reported daily since Dec. 29 except for Tuesday. Before Dec. 29, not a single day had with more than 16,000 new cases reported.

This also was the 11th straight week with an increase in COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents.

The state had 1,818.8 cases two weeks ago; 1,364.7 cases per 100,000 residents three weeks ago; 1,009.6 cases per 100,000 residents four weeks ago; and 783.2 cases per 100,000 five weeks ago.

The state’s cases are more than 21 times what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consider to be high-transmission areas for COVID-19.

The CDC number for high transmission is 100 cases per 100,000. It hasn’t been below that since July 29 when 77.4 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents were reported by the ODH.

The highest COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents this week among Ohio’s 88 counties was Pike with 3,409.9, and the lowest was Holmes with 687 cases per 100,000 residents.

VALLEY RATES

Mahoning is 72nd-highest in the state this week with 1,789.4 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents.

It was 18th last week with 1,943.7 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents. Mahoning was 10th two weeks ago with 2,010.2 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents; 11th three weeks ago with 1,281.2 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents; 19th four weeks ago with 865 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents; and 41st five weeks ago with 771.4 COVID-19 cases per 100,000.

Trumbull is 78th in Ohio this week with 1,546.7 cases per 100,000 residents.

Trumbull was 47th last week with 1,649.2 cases per 100,000 residents. It was 18th two weeks ago with 1,733.6 cases per 100,000 residents; 17th three weeks ago with 1,152.7 cases per 100,000 residents; 28th four weeks ago with 794 cases per 100,000 residents; and 42nd five weeks ago with 765.8 cases per 100,000.

Columbiana is 70th this week with 1,797.2 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents.

Columbiana was 68th last week with 1,385.9 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents. It was 46th two weeks ago with 1,300.5 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents; 40th three weeks ago with 876.5 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents; 45th four weeks ago with 727.3 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents; and 43rd five weeks ago with 755.3 COVID-19 cases per 100,000.

The ODH measures cases per 100,000 residents among counties to get a fair comparison because total cases would result in more-populous counties ranking higher.