COLUMBUS – As cases of COVID-19 spread like wildfire across Ohio and the rest of the United States, Gov. Mike DeWine and government and public health officials across the country are beseeching the public to take measures to stem the spread and be patient: the vaccination is coming.
Ohio posted more than 7,000 new confirmed and probable cases for the first time Thursday, raising the total number of people infected since March to 274,457.
“This is not sustainable,” DeWine told reporters during a televised coronavirus briefing from his home in Cedarville Thursday.
“We’re going to have very bad consequences if this thing continues to go up at the rate it’s going,” he said.
There are now 68 Ohio counties at Level 3 on the state’s four-tiered color-coded Public Health Advisory System (see map, above), including Delaware County, which was upgraded Thursday, and all 88 counties in Ohio remain at “high incidence” of spread as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DeWine said.
Franklin County is among the “red” counties but is also on the “watch list, ” meaning it could be one of the first counties to be upgraded to Level 4 — signifying “severe exposure and spread” and designated by the color purple –next week. The county reported over 700 new cases Thursday for a total of 40,621.
DeWine and other state officials are gearing up for a monumental undertaking to distribute hundreds of millions of doses of a vaccine, prioritize who’s first in line and ensure that people who get the initial shot return for the necessary second one.
The push could begin as early as next month after drugmaker Pfizer announced promising test results Monday. That’s when federal officials say the first vaccine may be authorized for emergency use and immediately deployed to high-risk groups, such as health care workers.
“We know it’s going to take a while for that to go out and all during that period of time we’re going to have to continue to wear masks, we’re going to have to continue to keep the [social] distance, we’re going to have to continue to do all the things we’re doing now. And, we’re going to have to continue to test,” DeWine said.
The first batch of vaccine will probably only be enough to treat 15,000 individuals, but the supply will continue to arrive, DeWine said. Dr. Anthony Fauci , the nation’s top infectious says he hopes shots will be available to all Americans in April, May and June.
DeWine in an address Wednesday night urged Ohioans to take the coronavirus more seriously but stopped short of the type of severe crackdowns implemented in the spring, though he strengthened orders on retail businesses and threatened to close bars, restaurants and gyms for a second time as some governors are already doing.
DeWine warns about the dangers posed by informal gatherings, such as banquets and parties, but says the state can’t do much to enforce mask mandates or other health orders on those, even though there have been some introduced.
“You know, I don’t intend to send agents out to knock on people’s doors, go into their backyards, go down to their rec room. We can’t do that and we shouldn’t do that,” he said.
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Ohioans filed 21,868 initial jobless claims last week, the second straight weekly increase, according to statistics the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reported to the U.S. Department of Labor Thursday as the COVID -19 pandemic continued to weigh on the state’s economy. The number of first-time jobless claims was 2.8% more than the last week of October.
The total number of initial jobless claims filed in Ohio over the last 34 weeks is over 1.8 million.
The number of continuing claims is considered a more reliable barometer of the employment situation and Ohioans filed 260,855 continued claims last week, the sixth straight decline.
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School systems in Detroit, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and suburban Minneapolis are giving up on in-person classes, as are the Groveport Madison Schools, which will return to 100% remote learning next Wednesday.
More than 190 staff members and students are either infected or quarantined in the district, superintendent Garilee Ogden said Thursday.
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DeWine announced the creation of a new zip code dashboard. Ohioans can now view data from their local communities and filter data by probable or confirmed case status, county, a specific zip code, or a specific time period.
Case counts will also be available on a downloadable, filterable chart sorted from the most cases to the least.
To protect confidentiality, case counts for zip codes with fewer than five cases or less than 100 total residents will not be displayed.