Dr. Jeffery Weinstein, with Kettering Health Network, said they’ve seen a slow but steady decline over the last three weeks in admissions as well as the total patients in the hospital.
“It’s definitely a real trend. When we see it a couple days in a row, we get excited but that’s not always something panning out. But this has been really for about three weeks now,” Weinstein said.
Credit: Will Jones
Credit: Will Jones
This local trend mirrors state and regional data, where similar peaks occurred in December but has since improved compared to where the surge was.
As of Friday, there were 281 people in the Dayton region hospitalized as an inpatient with COVID-19, which is about 1 out of every 7 hospital patients. That’s down 25% from a week ago, down 34% from three weeks ago, and down 43% from 60 days ago.
Out of those hospitalized patients in the Dayton region, there were 80 people sick enough to be hospitalized in the ICU with COVID-19. That’s down 8% from a week ago, down 12% from three weeks ago, and down 24% from 60 days ago.
“While we continue to monitor this data daily, we are glad to see that the regional hospitalizations for COVID-19 have been slightly decreasing over the last 10 days,” said Lisa Henderson, vice president of Health Initiatives of the Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association. “Our ICU volumes for COVID-19 have not reflected the same rate of decline, but have held pretty steady over the same time period.”
While there were times when cases rose after the holidays, the cases are overall down and trending lower, and region appears to have avoided a big holiday surge.
“I think it just reinforces the message of social distancing and wearing a mask. That helps reduce the spread of COVID,” Weinstein said.
While trends are relatively better, hospitals are still busier with more COVID-19 patients now than they were during the summer, Weinstein said.
Out of any 200 Ohioans, at least 1 has tested positive for COVID during the past 2 weeks, Gov. Mike DeWine said at his Thursday press conference.
“These numbers have come down a little bit but they are still historically high,” DeWine said.
Weinstein said you don’t want to get sick this close to vaccines.
“The patients that are in the hospital are very high acuityAnd unfortunately, we’re having deaths. So it’s great that we have fewer admissions and fewer patients in the hospital, but the ones that we have are just as sick as they were at any point during the pandemic,” Weinstein said.
The Ohio Department of Health reported 4,278 cases on Friday, a 3,000 case drop from the 7,271 cases recorded Thursday.
This is the third time Ohio has had fewer than 5,000 cases a day this week, with 4,312 cases reported Monday and 4,989 on Tuesday.
Throughout the pandemic 853,982 total cases have been recorded in Ohio.
On Thursday, Gov. Mike DeWine announced that a statewide curfew scheduled to expire Saturday will be extended. Details about how long it will be extended or if it will remain from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. were not released.
The governor cited a new variant found in Ohio as well as a high number of cases and hospitalizations as reasons behind extending the curfew.
While the state appears to see a drop in cases and hospitalizations since a surge in November, DeWine still wants to see Ohio’s numbers drop more.
“We’re not there yet and as governor I have to try to keep this virus down as we get vaccines out as quickly as we can,” he said.
Beginning Monday, Ohio will open coronavirus vaccines to people ages 75 and older.
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