Hamilton County, like the rest of Ohio, is seeing an increase in cases of COVID-19 — what Hamilton County Commissioner Denise Driehaus called a “bit of a crossroads” in the pandemic during a briefing on Wednesday.
“We have an upward trend in the state — we have an upward trend in the country for positive cases— and we’re seeing the same here in Hamilton County,” she said.
There have been 954 confirmed COVID cases in Hamilton County since last week, an increase of 38 hospitalizations (for total of 1,205) and five new deaths. Ohio-wide, as of yesterday, there were 2,039 new cases of COVID reported in 24 hours
“We were seeing a trend where we were in the 600s, the 500s, high 400s; last week we were at 613 (reported cases) — that was the week-to-week increase. The increase this week is 954, so it’s a significant jump,” said Driehaus. “And the hospitalizations are trending up as well.”
She said deaths, a lagging indicator, are expected to go up as well.
In terms of Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine said the current positivity rate is 4.1%; on Sept. 23 and 24, it had been 2.1%.
“We had been averaging a little over 1,000 cases per day only two weeks ago, so we’ve gone up quite dramatically in several weeks,” said DeWine during his state-wide briefing Wednesday.
DeWine noted that 51 counties in Ohio are currently ranked as having a “high incidence” of COVID-19, meaning there have been more than 100 cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks.
“We are not alone. Cases are spiking around the country and the state of Ohio,” said Hamilton County Public Health Commissioner Greg Kesterman during Wednesday’s county briefing.
“If we could get compliance up to 80% or 90% for mask wearing, we could dramatically change the trajectory of the next several months. If we don’t things will get worse,” he said.
Kesterman said Hamilton County is now reporting about 120 cases per day — from activities like going to the grocery store and not from super-spreader events. Two hundred cases reported over the past seven days have been in the 18-29-year-old age group.
Kesterman also reminded people that if they are getting a COVID test because they are symptomatic or have been exposed to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, it’s important to stay at home until you get your test results back. (Then, obviously, if the test is positive, you need to continue to stay home.) If you are just testing out of an abundance of caution because you went somewhere that maybe had more people than you were comfortable with, you don’t need to stay home.
Hamilton County’s current reproductive number — the number of people an infected individual is infecting — is at 1.33. We had been hovering around 1 or just below 1. And any number above 1 means “we’re kind of expanding the pandemic,” Kesterman said.
“We know there are several vaccines and treatments in development and this will eventually provide a solution, but we are not there yet,” he said.
“We need to work a lot harder at controlling our cases by doing those very basic measures — wearing a mask, staying home if you’re sick, washing your hands and social distancing. That is how we control COVID-19 here in our community.”
Kesterman said people need to also be cognizant of adjusting holiday plans to keep people safe.
“We just need to tweak what we’re doing after work and what we’re doing on the weekends and make sure that we’re still being very cautious with our families. When we let other families into our circles, we need to continue to be cautious because that is how COVID-19 is spreading — it’s spreading from person to person, and it’s in these places where we’re letting our guard down.”
After previously flattening the curve in Hamilton County, Kesterman said he is proud of the work citizens have been doing and said, “We can do this. We’ve done it before.”
“We’re at a critical moment. If we work hard, we can absolutely control COVID in this community.”
*The Ohio case number for Wednesday has been updated to 2,039
This article appears in The Fall Guide.