Ohio continuing to see new cases spike
CDC’s revised mask guidance would apply to Montgomery County.
Ohio reported more than a thousand coronavirus cases for the second straight day on Wednesday as health officials reverse guidelines, advising even vaccinated people to wear masks indoors in areas seeing surges, such as several local counties.
The state reported 1,456 new cases on Wednesday, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Ohio reported 1,317 cases on Tuesday, making it the first time the state has recorded more than a thousand cases since the end of May.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance on Tuesday recommending that vaccinated people return to wearing face masks in public indoor settings in areas with “substantial” or “high” levels of transmission. According to the CDC website, Butler, Clinton, Greene, Miami, Montgomery and Preble counties currently fall in the substantial transmission category.
Most of the rest of Ohio is experiencing only a moderate level of transmission.
The CDC cited new information about the delta variant’s ability to spread among some vaccinated people.
“It’s not so much the category name in and of itself, it’s the conditions surrounding the category and that presently in Montgomery County the cases are rising, and they’re rising at a level that is not acceptable,” said Dan Suffoletto, spokesman for Public Health-Dayton & Montgomery County. “So we’re doing everything we can to get the message out to people to encourage those who are unvaccinated to get vaccinated.”
Ohio is averaging 591 cases a day in the last 21 days. However, in the last week the state is reporting an average of 874.5 cases a day.
Ohio reported 80 hospitalizations on Wednesday, nearly double its 21-day average of 44. In the last week, the state is averaging 61 hospitalizations a day.
Six ICU admissions were reported in Ohio in the last 24 hours. The state is averaging five a day in the last three weeks.
More than 49% of Ohioans have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine and nearly 46% have completed it, according to ODH. As of Wednesday, more than 5.73 million people in the state have started the vaccine and more than 5.36 million have completed it.
Some states such as Nevada and cities such as Kansas City, Missouri, were among the locations that moved swiftly to re-impose indoor mask mandates following Tuesday’s announcement from the CDC. But governors in Pennsylvania and South Carolina said they would not revert back to stricter mask mandates.
The CDC’s updated guidance was prompted by new data suggesting vaccinated people can pass on the virus in rare cases, Rochelle Walensky, the agency’s director, said Wednesday.
But she stressed that the vaccines are working by preventing greater levels of hospitalization and death. Unvaccinated people, she said, account for the vast number of new infections. Two-thirds of the vaccine-eligible population in the U.S. has had at least one dose.
“I know this is not a message America wants to hear,” Walensky told CNN.