The Centers for Disease Control urges Ohioans to stay home during the holidays. If you must travel, consider getting coronavirus tests before and after, health officials suggest.
The no-travel advice echoes recommendations for Thanksgiving but many Americans ignored it. With COVID-19 continuing to surge, the CDC added the testing option.
“Cases are rising, hospitalizations are increasing , deaths are increasing. We need to try to bend the curve, stop this exponential increase,” the CDC’s Dr. Henry Walke said during a briefing.
He said any travel-related surge in cases from travel would likely be apparent about a week to 10 days after Thanksgiving.
The virus has infected more than 13.5 million Americans and killed at least 270,000 since January.
On Monday, Ohio broke records for hospitalization, with 5,060 patients in the hospital across the state. The state reported 6,600 new cases, 30 deaths and 357 hospitalizations.
“It’s a 200% increase just since Nov. 1,” when there were nearly 1,700 coronavirus patients in Ohio hospitals, said Dr. Andy Thomas, chief clinical officer of Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, who spoke Monday during Gov. Mike DeWine’s video press conference.
Thomas said there are concerns about ICU capacity as more hospitals voice concerns about their ability to manage so many patients requiring intensive care.
“A third of the patients in the ICU across Ohio has COVID. One third of the patients on a ventilator in the ICU has COVID,” Thomas said. “They’ll crowd out other people who need that care if the numbers continue to rise.”
Thomas said there are concerns about ICU capacity as more hospitals voice concerns about their ability to manage so many patients requiring intensive care.
“A third of the patients in the ICU across Ohio has COVID. One third of the patients on a ventilator in the ICU has COVID,” Thomas said. “They’ll crowd out other people who need that care if the numbers continue to rise.”
On Tuesday, Ohio smashed its record daily and current hospitalizations, reporting 585 in the last 24 hours, according to the Ohio Department of Health. The state reported 119 deaths on Tuesday, along with 9,030 cases.
There were 5,234 COVID-19 patients in hospitals across the state, beating the record of 5,067 set on Monday. Hospitalized patients in southwest Ohio increased slightly from 1,255 to 1,268.
Coronavirus patients accounted for 18.09% of hospital beds in the region, with 1,854 (or 26.44%) of beds remaining open.
There were 310 ICU patients and 191 people on ventilators in southwest Ohio, according to ODH.
Following the Thanksgiving holiday, Gov. Mike DeWine asked Ohioans to continue to limit physical contact with people outside their household.
“I’m asking every Ohioan to continue to pull back and limit your activities. There is a cause and effect to what we do — we can slow this down,” he said. The scariest thing is that there is no indication that we have plateaued. We haven’t seen anything like this for 100 years.”
Wednesday was the second day in a row the state reported over 100 deaths from coronavirus. The average for deaths on Wednesday was 50 people a day.
Gov. Mike DeWine has previously noted that daily death data notes when ODH is informed of the death and does not reflect the day a person died.
Hospitalizations increased by 436 Wednesday for a total of 27,885. There are 5,208 COVID-19 patients in Ohio hospitals, slightly down from the 5,234 reported on Tuesday.
Cases increased by 7,835, slightly below the 21-day average of 8,122. There have been 437,928 cases of coronavirus reported in Ohio throughout the pandemic.
On Thursday, Ohio reported 8,921 cases, 82 deaths and 396 hospitalizations.
There were 5,142 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Ohio as of Thursday, a slight decrease from the 5,219 reported Wednesday. There have been more than 5,000 coronavirus patients in Ohio hospitals each day since Monday, which was the first time Ohio has had more than 5,000 coronavirus inpatients at a time.
A spike in recent cases the last few weeks has caused a delay in contact tracing in Montgomery County, according to the local health department.
Public Health - Dayton & Montgomery County is asking anyone who tests positive for the virus to notify everyone they think is a close contact.
More than 10,000 daily cases of coronavirus were reported in Ohio Friday, making it the first time the state reported over 10,000 since Thanksgiving, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
It is the fourth-highest number of daily cases the state has reported, Gov. Mike DeWine said.
Ohio’s Thanksgiving coronavirus data was published with numbers from last Friday, resulting in the state reporting more than 17,000 cases. Ohio recorded 392 hospitalizations Friday, for a total of 28,673.
Friday marked the fifth-straight day the state had more than 5,000 COVID-19 patients in hospitals across Ohio. Coronavirus patients account for 18.54% of the state’s hospital beds and 24.85% of the state’s ICU beds.
Deaths increased by 129 Friday, bringing the total to 6,882. It is the third highest number of daily deaths reported. DeWine noted that the death data reflects when the state is informed of the death and does not reflect the date of the actual death.
Ohio still has not seen the full impact of travel and gatherings over the Thanksgiving holiday, said Dr. Andy Thomas of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
Most COVID-19 patients being to show symptoms three to 10 days after they’re first exposed. From there, it could take another seven to 10 days before they’d need to be hospitalized, he said.
On Saturday, the Ohio Department of Health reported more than 10,000 new cases.
Hospitalizations rose by 286 and the state reported 64 more deaths.
The Ohio Department of Health reported 10,469 new cases on Saturday. The current 21 day average for cases is 8,438.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers new guidelines that call for fewer days in quarantine for those who may have been exposed but are not showing symptoms.
Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, the Ohio Department of Health’s chief medical officer, discussed the CDC’s new guidelines Friday afternoon during Gov. Mike DeWine’s video news conference.
The new guidance calls for a 10-day quarantine if the exposure did not require testing and there are no symptoms, and a seven-day quarantine if COVID-19 test results are negative and there are no symptoms.
The 10-day period may be sufficient, however, Vanderhoff recommends that Ohioans consider getting tested on day eight or later to increase certainty of no infection. Quarantine can then end at the conclusion of the 10-day period.
On Sunday, the state reported 7,592 more cases of coronavirus and more 274 hospitalizations, bringing total cases to 475,024 and hospitalizations to 29,233.
The state reported 13 more deaths, resulting in a total of 6,959 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
While there was a slight drop in hospitalizations on Saturday, the Ohio Hospital Association reported that 5,072 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 across the state.
A new coronavirus antibody treatment called bamlanivimab is now available for qualified patients at Kettering Health Network and Premier Health.
The treatment was approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration in early November. Clinical trial results indicated bamlanivimab helps prevent hospitalizations and emergency room visits, as well as reduces the risk of coronavirus progressing.
Currently, the 21 day case average is 8,425. The death average is 59 people a day and the hospitalization average is 332 people.
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