COLUMBUS — Governor Mike DeWine says Ohio’s 10:00 p.m. curfew will move back one hour if COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to fall.
The number of Ohioans currently hospitalized with the virus dropped below 3,000 Tuesday to 2,964.
It was also the sixth straight day when the number was below 3,500 and DeWine said if the number of Ohioans in the hospital with COVID-19 remained below that level for one more day, the statewide 10:00 p.m.-to-5:00 a.m. curfew would be moved back to 11:00 p.m. for two weeks and would continue to be relaxed if the number of hospitalizations decreases farther.
“We’re going to take a snapshot of it, you know, basically on Thursday. Two weeks from this Thursday, we’ll snapshot it again, look at it and see what we’re seeing and we hope it’s going to continue and we’ll be able to go to midnight,” DeWine said Tuesday.
If the number stays below 3,000 for a week, the curfew would be rolled back to midnight and if there are fewer than 2,500 patients in hospitals for seven days, the curfew would be lifted altogether.
If COVID-related hospitalizations rise, DeWine says health officials could reinstitute the curfew to ease the burden on medical facilities.
“When our COVID hospitalizations are above 2,500, which is more than three times Ohio’s peak in a typical flu season, our hospitals strain in their ability to deliver other care, especially routine diagnostic and procedural care. When cases are above 3,500, our hospitals are highly stressed,” Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, chief medical officer for the Department of Health said.
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DeWine also says the state’s goal is for every school employee to receive the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine in February.
The governor says Ohio does not have enough doses for all districts to be receiving vaccinations this month. The governor has said the state wants students to return to in-person learning full-time or in a hybrid model by March 1.
Due to the scarcity of vaccine, the process will take weeks, but Ohio’s goal is to have all first doses administered by the end of February. He says vaccinating older Ohioans, those with certain special medical conditions and school employees will require some “juggling.”
“If we had more vaccines, we wouldn’t be juggling quite as much,” DeWine said.
Relief may be on the way as Pres. Joe Biden announced a roughly 16% boost in deliveries of vaccines to hard-pressed states over the next three weeks and he says he expects to provide enough doses to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of the summer or early fall.
Calling the push a “wartime effort,” Biden says states will begin receiving reliable 3-week forecasts of how much vaccine doses to expect.
Ohio school districts that are eligible to begin receiving vaccines next week should have already received notification and the rest should be notified of their scheduled dates by the end of this week, DeWine said.
To be eligible to receive vaccine, districts had to commit to remaining or returning to in-person or hybrid learning March 1.
The governor says Cincinnati public school employees will receive their first shots later this week and other districts will begin next week.
As of Tuesday, the state had administered initial vaccine doses to 656,474 individuals, or about 4.6% of the total population. Experts estimate Ohio will need to vaccinate at least 60% to 70% of its population to achieve herd immunity.
The state on Tuesday reported 4,262 new cases of COVID-19, lower than the three-week average. A total of 872,918 Ohioans have been infected with the virus and 10,856 have died.
There were 295 people admitted to hospitals for a total of 42,276 since the pandemic began.
Ohioans hospitalized with COVID-19 occupy 19.81% of the total number of beds statewide.
There are 113,930 active cases.
The seven-day positivity rate is 8.8%.