COLUMBUS – Columbus and Franklin County health officials Thursday announced that they are issuing an “indoor mask advisory” in the face of rising cases of COVID-19.
“This is an advisory. It’s not an order and it’s not a mandate,” Columbus Health Commissioner Dr. Mysheika Roberts said.
“And, the reason it’s not an order or a mandate is because of state Senate Bill 22, which prohibits us from doing any order that would be a blanket order to the whole population,” she said.
The reference is to a law enacted earlier this year that gives the state legislature oversight of pandemic regulations
The recommendation applies to vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals when they are indoors at restaurants, fitness facilities another businesses as well as when attending crowded outdoor events and follows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance for areas with substantial community spread of COVID-19.
In the last four weeks, the Franklin County positivity rate has more than doubled from 1.3% to 2.8% while, as of August 5, only 50.5% of residents had been fully vaccinated, Roberts and Franklin County Health Commissioner Joseph Mazzola said.
Hospitals in Ohio have seen admissions due to COVID-19 quadruple in the past two weeks because of the highly contagious delta variant, Dr. Andy Thomas, of OSU Wexner Medical Center, told reporters on the news conference at the headquarters of Columbus Public Health.
The rate of COVID-19 cases in Ohio has risen to 125.1 per 100,000 residents.