Saturday marked the ninth day in a row the state has reported fewer than 5,000 new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours. The ODH reported 3,549 new cases Saturday. The 21-day case average continues to drop, currently sitting at 4,599 on Saturday, the Ohio Department of Health reported.
In the past 24 hours, 81 people have died of coronavirus, bringing total deaths to 11,652 since March, ODH reported.
Hospitalizations also continue to fall, with 2,030 people, about one in nine hospitalized patients, positive for COVID-19. In southwest Ohio, 602 people are hospitalized, the Ohio Hospital Association reported; 139 people were hospitalized today, raising total hospitalizations to 47,477.
The nation’s top health officials sounded the alarm this week about the Super Bowl being a potential super spreader event, and they urged people to gather with friends over Zoom, not in crowds.
“I’m worried about Super Bowl Sunday, quite honestly. People gather, they watch games together. We’ve seen outbreaks already from football parties,” said Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “So I really do think that we need to watch this and be careful.”
The Super Bowl comes as the nation sees a dramatic drop in new virus cases — a sign that the infection spike from holiday gatherings is easing. The virus has killed more than 459,000 people in the U.S., but the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases went from 180,489 as of Jan. 22 to 125,854 as of Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
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