CLEVELAND, Ohio - Forget about a quick end to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s health orders.
Ohio’s coronavirus case rate has increased for the second straight week, instead of working closer to the governor’s stated goal of 50 cases per 100,000 residents over a two-week period - the test DeWine said he will apply before lifting his health orders ranging from mask mandates to limited capacities at restaurants and entertainment venues.
Cleveland.com projects that when the new case rate is announced Thursday afternoon, it will be close to 166.7 cases per 100,000, up from 146.9 per 100,000 last week and 143.8 per 100,000 two weeks ago.
When Gov. DeWine announced his promise March 4 to lift his health orders once the rate reaches 50 cases per 100,000, cases had been dropping rapidly, from 845.5 per 100,000 in mid-December to 178.5 at the time of his announcement.
But the downward trend stalled this month, first leveling off and then beginning to increase, following a national pattern of increasing cases.
The rate is based on when people became sick, not when the cases were reported. And it excludes incarcerated individuals.
The official number released by the state likely will differ some from the cleveland.com estimate, mainly because it’s unknown how many of the recently reported cases involve incarcerated people.
But in each of the last three weeks the cleveland.com projection has been within decimal points - 146.8 compared to the official number of 146.9 last week, 144 compared to the official number of 143.8 two weeks ago, and 155 in matching the official number three weeks ago.
The increasing case numbers come as health officials say Ohio and other states are in a race to vaccinate more people before new variants of the coronavirus spread extensively. To date, about 35% of Ohio’s 16 and older population now having received at least one shot.
“It’s literally a race between how fast we can get people vaccinated and how fast people are willing to take the vaccine versus the variant,” DeWine said during a media briefing last week.
Three variants have now made their way to Ohio, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Dr. Amy Edwards, infectious disease physician at University Hospitals in Cleveland, said even vaccinated people run some risk when exposed, more so than the initial coronavirus, yet the vaccination “does still appear to protect against severe disease and death, even with a variant.”
Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner. See other data-related stories at cleveland.com/datacentral.
Previous stories
Ohio deaths in 2020 increased by nearly 20,000, latest data shows
Article From & Read More ( Ohio COVID-19 case rate per 100,000 goes up again, hurting chance for a quick end to Gov. DeWine’s health ord - cleveland.com )https://ift.tt/3sFsgtL
Case
No comments:
Post a Comment