SUMMARY OF OHIO PUBLIC HEALTH ADVISORY ALERT SYSTEM 7 INDICATORS

When determining whether a county is a level one, two, three or four alert, the system looks at how many of the following seven indicators that counties meet:

■ New cases per capita: Flagged if greater than 50 cases per 100,000 residents over the last two weeks. Allows for counties with different population sizes to be appropriately compared.

■ Sustained increase in new COVID-19 hospital admissions: Flagged if increasing trend of at least 5 consecutive days in overall cases by onset date over the last 3 weeks. Reflects disease spread in the population.

■ High proportion of cases that aren’t congregate cases: Flagged if proportion of cases that are not in a congregate setting goes over 50% in at least one of the last 3 weeks.

■ Sustained increase in emergency visits for COVID-like illness: Flagged if increasing trend of at least 5 consecutive days in the number of visits to the emergency department with COVID-like illness or a diagnosis over the last 3 weeks.

■ Sustained increase in outpatient visits: Flagged if increasing trend of at least 5 consecutive days in the number of people going to a health care provider with

COVID symptoms who then receive a COVID confirmed or suspected diagnosis over the last 3 weeks.

■ Sustained increase in new COVID-19 hospital admissions: Flagged if increasing trend of at least 5 consecutive days in the number of new hospitalizations due to COVID over the last 3 weeks.

■ ICU bed occupancy: Flagged if percentage of the occupied ICU beds in each region goes above 80% for at least three days in the last week, and more than 20% of ICU beds are being used for COVID-19 positive patients for at least three days in the last week.