Governor DeWine: We are Moving in the Wrong Direction with COVID-19 Cases

Governor Mike DeWine announced Thursday that this week is the second week where COVID-19 cases over two weeks per 100,000 people have gone up by more than 10.

Two weeks ago, Ohio’s cases per 100,000 people were 146.9. Thursday case per 100,000 people is at 183.7. 

“We are moving in the wrong direction from our statewide goal of 50 cases per 100,000 people,” said Governor DeWine. “We are not seeing the runaway case growth we saw during the fall yet, so we can still turn this around if more people continue to get vaccinated and we continue to mask and social distance.”

The increases in case rates are reflected in this week’s Ohio Public Health Advisory System map. New health data compiled by the Ohio Department of Health shows case increases in 53 counties over the past week.

Level changes include:

• Franklin County moved to the watch list following sustained increases in cases and in COVID-related healthcare use including emergency department and outpatient visits and hospitalizations for COVID.
• Putnam County moved from orange to red.
• Carroll, Mercer, and Morgan counties moved from yellow to orange.
• Brown and Noble counties dropped from orange to yellow.

According to Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, chief medical officer at the Ohio Department of Health, Ohio and the nation are enduring another wave of COVID-19 due to variants of the original virus that are more contagious and more deadly. Variant counts in Ohio jumped from 92 on March 12 to 797 today, a doubling time of about every 9-10 days.