Infections push Franklin County back to purple
State cites continued increases in new cases
Franklin County is again at the highest warning level in the state’s coronavirus advisory system. The Ohio Department of Health announced the rating of purple for Franklin County on Thursday afternoon, citing continued increases in new cases, hospital admissions and other coronavirus trends over the past two weeks in Ohio’s capital county.
“Franklin has gone to purple because its health care utilization has started to increase,” Gov. Mike Dewine said during an afternoon news conference. “Emergency visits, they’re up. Outpatient visits, hospital visits for COVID, those are all up.”
The color rating shift likely won’t trigger any specific restrictions, closings or other immediate mandates from state or local health officials, but residents were urged to take precautions to prevent the further spread of the disease.
“We all need to remain diligent, to wash our hands, stay home when we can, wear a mask,” Mitzi Kline, spokeswoman for Franklin County Public Health, said during a morning briefing with local officials, prior to the announcement of the new rating.
“We know that people are feeling like it’s over and we can get back out and get to normal, but I think clearly with the trends we’re seeing now, it’s just a little bit of a jolt of reality that we are still in a national pandemic, a global pandemic, and we’re not out of the woods yet,” she said.
In November, Franklin County became the first county in Ohio to reach a purple rating. It remained there for two weeks and has been rated as “red” ever since, although it was added to the state’s watchlist a week ago, even as other counties saw their ratings decline in severity to “orange” and “yellow.”
Franklin County leads the state in the number of coronavirus cases, with more than 121,700 since the start of the pandemic about a year ago. The county also has had 3,696 hospitalizations and 1,352 deaths attributed to the disease.
The county had 3,039 case over the past two weeks, or about 231 per 100,000 residents, according to the Ohio Department of Health, well below those that triggered Franklin County’s first purple rating in November. At that time, the county was reporting 7,283 coronavirus cases over the previous two weeks, or about 553 cases per 100,000 residents.
But the county met other indicators the state uses to rate the severity of exposure and spread of the disease, including infections per capita, sustained increases in new cases, upticks in hospital visits and other factors.
“The increasing number of new cases and Covid-19-related health care use (including emergency department, outpatient visits and hospitalization) are being reported at a concerning rate,” Franklin County Public Health Commissioner Joe Mazzola said in a released statement. “As stated by the Ohio Department of Health, major contributors to the trends we are seeing are the variants of COVID-19 ... (that) are more transmissible and cause serious illness and potentially death.”
No one offered a specific reason why Franklin County cases are going up while other urban counties in Ohio are going down. Warming spring weather, ongoing vaccinations and general weariness over pandemic restrictions are prompting many people to be less cautious in their interactions, officials said.
“The pandemic that we’re going through is as serious as its ever been,” Franklin County Commissioner John O’grady said. “And people aren’t taking it seriously right now. ”
Columbus Public Health commissioner Dr. Mysheika Roberts
said there will be no recommendation for schools to close or go remote, but young people need to exercise caution as Columbus itself is averaging 200 plus COVID-19 cases per day and the average age now of patients is 35, down five years from November and December.
“We need to go back to what we practiced when the virus first entered our community,” Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said. “We have the opportunity and the power as individuals and the collective community to get vaccinated.”
Dispatch reporter Eric Lagatta contributed to this report.
mkovac@dispatch.com