COLUMBUS – “Victory is in sight.”
So declared Gov. Mike DeWine, marking the one-year anniversary of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that has sickened nearly 1 million Ohioans and killed over 16,000 by describing the benchmark by which the state may declare that it has ended.
During a statewide televised address Thursday, the Republican governor announced that all public health orders meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus would be lifted once the state hits the mark of 50 cases per 100,000 people for two weeks.
“Achieving this goal is very doable. We can do this, and I know we will,” he said.
DeWine noted that the figure has already dropped from 731 cases on Dec. 3 to 179 cases on Thursday, a 75% decline.
But the governor said meeting that goal requires continued mask wearing and for as many people to receive vaccines as possible, comparing the effort to that of a runner in the last mile of a marathon.
“Ohio, we must run through the tape at the end of this race. We need to keep going, we need to finish the job. And, we need to finish strong,” he said.
There were 1,875 new cases of COVID-19 reported Thursday, bringing the total number of Ohioans diagnosed with the virus in the fist year of the pandemic to 974,480 with 50,695 cumulative hospitalizations.
There were 82 new hospital admissions. The 1,009 hospitalized patients occupy 3.64% of the total number of beds in the state.
The 38,434 active cases of COVID-19 is the smallest number in four months and the state’s seven-day positivity rate fell to 3.0%.
A total of 984,471 Ohio residents had been vaccinated, 8.42% of the total population.
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A disgraced Republican lawmaker has introduced a pair of pandemic-related bills aimed at trimming public health officials’ powers.
Even while under a federal investigation for his alleged role in a $61 million bribery scheme, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford) has joined the line of GOP critics of Ohio’s anti-coronavirus efforts by introducing his own pair of bills to limit both state and local health departments from issuing emergency orders like the ones that have been issued since the pandemic began.
Meanwhile, the Ohio Legislature is making progress on eliminating most provisions included in the energy bill approved in 2019 at the heart of the bribery scandal.
The Ohio Senate has unanimously approved two pieces of legislation including one Wednesday that would remove a $1 billion bailout for two nuclear plants. The company that now owns the plants has indicated it no longer wants the $150 million annual subsidy.
A Senate bill approved last month eliminated a provision to provide guaranteed annual revenue for three utilities owned by FirstEnergy Corp., the company accused of funding the bribery scheme to help win passage of the energy bill.