COLUMBUS – Governor Mike DeWine has warned that spiking coronavirus cases could endanger in-person learning for Ohio schoolchildren.
The governor said Tuesday that all Ohioans should be concerned so many children are going to school remotely.
“In person, for most kids, is probably the best and is the best and that’s kind of where we would hope to get but we can’t get there when we’ve got these high numbers,” he said during his regular Tuesday coronavirus briefing.
Data from the Ohio Department of Health shows the number of people hospitalized in the state because of the coronavirus has hit new highs, with 1,221 hospitalized as of Tuesday, including 216 new cases, the highest number of hospitalizations on one day since the beginning of the pandemic.
Ohio hit a new one-day high for new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 Wednesday: 2,366, well-above the 21-day case average of 1,559 for a total of 188,005 with 5,149 deaths.
DeWine says some poor children who thrive in classrooms don’t do well online.
“While many kids can do well under these circumstances, many cannot,” he said.
Columbus City Schools officials said the fact that Franklin County is one of 29 counties across the state now in the “red” or Level Three of the Ohio Public Health Advisory Alert System (see map) as one of the factors behind the decision to postpone blended learning plans for most students until next year.
Most students will continue remote instruction through the end of the first semester on January 15, superintendent Dr. Talisa Dixon said Tuesday.
Students in Career and Technical Education at Columbus Downtown High School and the Ft. Hayes Career Center and special education students with specific complex needs in grades Pre-K to 12 will be able to begin hybrid learning on Nov. 2.
The state has tallied more than 2,000 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 on five of the last seven days. The total number of cases is now 185,639 with 5,083 deaths.
DeWine says 69 Ohio counties are now considered to be experience a “high incidence” of cases, defined as more than 100 cases per 100,000 population.