Alert map seen as deceptive, confusing
Soon after Gov. Mike Dewine announced Clermont County would be moving to the “red” or Level 3 on the state’s four-level public health alert map, the questions started coming to county health officials.
“Our numbers have hardly moved – 431 cases, 7 deaths, 57 hospitalizations,” one resident commented on the Clermont County Public Health Facebook page, noting the correct state figures. “That’s since it started. Why would we move to red? That’s crazy.”
“We’ve seen some reaction that this is an overreaction,” Clermont County Public Health spokesman Keith Robinson said Friday. “Only seven deaths total, six hospitalizations in the last two weeks – that doesn’t square with being red.”
The sentiment was echoed in Pickaway and Fairfield counties in central Ohio – less populous counties that lack the large number of cases and deaths seen in the larger, urban counties also designated “red.”
The designation comes with a state health order mandating face coverings in most public settings.
Ohio’s new county-by-county map was pitched as a better way to gauge which parts of the state are experiencing greater spread of the coronavirus. The daily reported case counts, hospitalizations and deaths lag by several days or weeks – they’re always a look into the past. The map takes into account seven different metrics to capture current trends or early warning signs.
Not all of the data behind the seven metrics are publicly available, clearly presented or easy to understand. The Enquirer requested data on each metric for southwest Ohio’s three red counties Friday. A spokeswoman directed reporters to online profiles, which contain some but not all of the requested data.
For example, one of the seven indicators is “new cases per capita.” A county is flagged if its new cases surpass 50 cases per 100,000 residents over the past two weeks – a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended threshold.
But that number isn’t explicitly listed on the online profiles provided by Ohio Department of Health. An enterprising person could add together numbers from a bar chart to find Hamilton County had about 200 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past two weeks – clearly above the metric’s threshold.
Clermont County was closer to 44 new cases per capita, and it wasn’t flagged for this indicator.
Other data are more clear: One of the seven indicators is ICU bed occupancy, which is flagged whenever the region’s capacity surpasses 80% for three of the past seven days.
Between June 26 and June 30, Hamilton County had 1,124 COVID-19 cases – the largest number of reported cases in a week since the pandemic began.
While less than 0.1% of the county’s population, it’s still a number that demands attention.
Pickaway County, which has about 59,000 residents, meets the case increase threshold if it gets 29 new cases over two weeks. As of Thursday, the county had about 200 cases outside the state prison there since March.
From June 16 to July 2, the average number of new cases per day went from one to four – enough to trigger the heat map indicator for increasing cases.
County Commissioner Brian Stewart said he and other commissioners were given little notice they were moving to Level 3. He doesn’t doubt the numbers behind the map and said the red designation doesn’t change much about the county’s response.
“But when people hear you’re a red county, they think things are pretty bad,” Stewart said. “And maybe that’s what the state wants.”
Still, Beth Bickford, executive director of the Association of Ohio Health Commissioners, warns Ohioans to take heed of jumps like that, even when they’re small numbers.
“When you have a doubling of something, you need to be watching it,” she said.