Backlog of COVID cases pushes Ohio’s daily count to nearly 10,000

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

A backlog of COVID-19 cases dating back to March 7 will artificially inflate Ohio’s daily count for the next few days, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

The state will add about 7,699 cases through Thursday, which will impact the daily count. However, ODH will make sure the correct illness onset date is assigned for each case.

The backlog is the result of manual reporting errors at two laboratories and include new cases and updated information for previously recorded cases. The reporting issue has since been resolved.

The state reported 9,922 cases on Tuesday, with 1,725 of those cases part of the backlog, ODH reported. The backlogged cases included Tuesday date back to Sept. 15.

Without including the backlogged cases, Ohio recorded 8,197 cases in the last day and is averaging 7,346 cases a day in the past week. The state’s 21-day average is 6,837 cases a day, according to the state health department.

Daily hospitalizations and ICU admissions were also high Tuesday. Ohio added 555 hospitalizations and 65 ICU admissions — the second amount reported for both metrics in the last three weeks. The highest number of hospitalizations and ICU admissions reported recently is 612 hospitalizations and 71 ICU admissions recorded last Tuesday.

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Ohio’s 21-day average is 287 hospitalizations and 29 ICU admissions a day, according to ODH.

On Tuesday, there were 4,758 COVID-19 in the state’s hospitals, including 1,172 patients in its ICUs and 767 on ventilators.

One in five hospital patients and one in three ICU patients have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Ohio Hospital Association. It’s a 11% increase in hospital inpatients in the past week and a 42% increase in the last three weeks. ICU patients with COVID are up 6% over the last week and 26% in the past three weeks.

The number of coronavirus patients has also increased 56% in Ohio’s hospitals and 31% in ICUs compared to 60 days ago, according to OHA.

Ohio reported 223 COVID deaths Tuesday, bringing its total to 27,594, according to ODH.

The day a death is reported does not reflect the day the death occurred. Because other states don’t regularly report death certificate data to Ohio’s Bureau of Vital Statistics, death data can fluctuate.

More than 58% of Ohioans have started the COVID-19 vaccine, including 69.22% of adults and 6.52% of those 5 and older.

Just over 54% of residents have completed the vaccine, including 64.4% of adults and 57.59% of Ohioans 5 and older.

More than 6.87 million people in Ohio have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 6.33 million have finished the vaccine series, according to ODH. In the last day, 36,627 people in the state received an additional vaccine dose, bringing Ohio’s total to 2.168 million.

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