COLUMBUS – From the DeWine family living room in Cedarville to the White House, the outlook was rosy Thursday as far as the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic was concerned.
Ohio’s governor and President Joe Biden both emphasized the positive with visions of county fair midways and backyard barbecues by mid-summer.
Just like old times. Two years ago.
DeWine announced that the state had issued a revised order that would allow fair activities by June if certain health conditions are met, such as mandatory face coverings, social distancing and attendance limits at grandstands. The order limits attendance to a maximum of 25 percent maximum for indoor grandstand capacity and a 30 percent maximum for outdoor grandstand capacity.
“That’s the way it looks today. It certainly is possible that, by the time we get to the second month of fairs, or even possible the first month of fairs in June, that we may off the health orders, we don’t know,” DeWine said during his Thursday pandemic briefing.
DeWine announced last week that when Ohio reached 50 cases per 100,000 people for two weeks, all health orders will be lifted. Statewide data Thursday put Ohio at 155 cases per 100,000 people.
“In Ohio, we are still at a very elevated level of cases, but today’s health data is certainly trending in the right direction,” DeWine said.
The state will issue updated guidelines for regarding festivals, parades, proms, and spring sports in the next week, he said. For spring sports, DeWine says students will not be required to quarantine because they have an incidental exposure to COVID-19 in a classroom unless symptoms develop.
In a prime-time address Thursday night, Biden outlined his plan to make all adult Americans eligible for vaccination from COVID-19 by May 1 and he raised the prospect of beginning to gain what he called “independence from this virus” by the Fourth of July.
Vaccinations were available to Ohioans age 50 and older on Thursday. The state has vaccinated over 1.2 million people, 10.62% of the total population.
Columbus Public Health has a limited amount of COVID-19 vaccine doses and is now scheduling for eligible Columbus and Worthington residents who are 50+ or have a qualifying medical condition or occupation. Learn more about eligibility and registration.
Starting at 4:00 p.m. Friday, Franklin County Public Health’s web scheduling portal will open up for registration for eligible individuals.
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DeWine also announced initiatives to make rapid COVID-19 tests more accessible through federally qualified health centers, local health departments, schools and 120 libraries.
A new partnership will bring 200,000 at-home tests to Educational Service Centers for school districts to use to develop aggressive testing plans.
Between libraries and local health departments, at-home testing is accessible in 76 of Ohio’s 88 counties, including areas of the state that suffered disproportionately poor access to testing earlier in the pandemic, DeWine said.
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The state reported there were 1,448 new cases of COVID-19 Thursday, bringing the total number of Ohioans infected to 984,934 with 51,323 hospitalizations.
There were 112 new hospital admissions and 908 patients were currently being treated in hospitals statewide for the virus, a decline of more than 100 in one week. Approximately 3.31% of the state’s hospital beds were occupied by coronavirus patients.
There were 33, 516 active cases and the statewide seven-day positivity was 3.1%.