Ohio – Ohio passed 400,000 coronavirus cases Saturday as the state reported 6,895 new infections, just 12 days after hitting 300,000 cases.
Ohio reported 32 deaths in the last 24 hours and 302 new hospitalizations. Case numbers the last three days have been below the seven-day average of 9,197.9, but it was unclear how the Thanksgiving holiday was impacting case reporting.
The state’s coronavirus dashboard cautioned that the data is incomplete because thousands of reports are pending review. Ohio’s COVID-19 case reporting has become backlogged as the state “double checks” antigen tests.
An update this week to the state’s coronavirus in schools dashboard showed 2,991 new student cases and 1,736 new staff cases, both of which were weekly records.
A total of 11,927 student cases and 7,375 staff cases have now been reported by the Ohio Department of Health.
Ohio ranks fourth in the country for highest seven-day case average, behind California, Texas, and Illinois.
The number of cases in the state’s backlog has fluctuated but had risen as high as 15,000 as of an update from Gov. Mike DeWine Monday. About three-fourths of the backlogged cases were ultimately being confirmed as positive cases.
According to Ohio Hospital Association data, a record 4,740 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized and 1,120 patients being treated in intensive care units. The report shows one in four hospital patients in Ohio are COVID-19 positive, which is a 588% increase from two months ago when one in 27 patients were COVID-19 positive.
Lake, Montgomery, and Lorain counties joined Franklin County on Wednesday in Ohio’s Purple Alert Level 4 indicator — the worst indicator on the state’s four-level scale, showing high spread of COVID-19. Those counties are the only four that have ever been purple.
Eleven counties were added to the watch list, meaning they are at risk of entering the purple next week.
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