07/16/2020

2020-07-16 OH Gov. DeWine COVID-19 Update

Updated daily at 2 p.m. - https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/ 

New orders/actions

• The 8 new counties in Alert Level 3 will subject to the mask order beginning tomorrow night at 6:00 pm ET.
• The next press conference will be Tuesday, July 21, unless events warrant.

The state updated the Alert Level Map – with several counties being added to Level 3, with no counties moving to Level 4 this week.  Ohio Public Health Advisory System

• Level 1 (yellow) – 33
• Level 2 (orange) – 36
• Level 3 (red) – 19 – new – Athens, Scioto, Licking, Delaware, Union, Allen, Lucas, Richland
• starred as close to Level 4 – Athens
• Level 4 (purple) - 0

Trumbull County dropped down to Level 2/orange.  The new Level 3/red counties will be subject to the mask order beginning tomorrow night at 6:00 pm ET.  With these 19 counties, approximately 60% of the state’s population will be under the mandatory mask order.  The Governor was encouraged that Hamilton County’s numbers appear to be slowing down.  Hamilton, Butler and Cuyahoga all were removed from the starred status.

In response to questions about what happens should a county be moved into Level 4/purple, the Governor did not say what, if any, measures the state or a local health department would take if that happens.  Governor DeWine had no response to what conditions would prompt him to take action.  He instead focused on the fact that the system is meant to inform people of the risk level in their county.  He and the Lt. Governor continued to insist that people need to take personal responsibility for their actions and to make good decisions to prevent spread, again noting that current hot spot Florida’s numbers were similar to Ohio’s current figures just one month ago.  That being said, the Governor stressed that he will do whatever it takes to keep the people of Ohio safe, but said the better pathway is for people to take the warning the alert system provides and act accordingly. 

Dr. Andrew Thomas, Chief Clinical Officer, OSU Wexner Medical Center, joined the press conference today to discuss the public alert system.  He stated that the system is designed as an early warning – to show people where infection is getting worse and to allow residents to take action to curb that spread.  Dr. Thomas again went through what the 7 data points measure.  As a reminder, the 7 indicators are:

• 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 Cases - Flagged if increasing trend of at least 5 days in overall cases by onset date. Reflects disease spread in the population.
• Proportion of Cases Not 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. Used as indicator of greater risk of community spread.
• Sustained Increase in Emergency Room Visits - Flagged if increasing trend of at least 5 days in the number of visits to the emergency department with COVID-like illness or a diagnosis. Provides information on the health care seeking behavior of the population and a sense of how concerned residents are about their current health status and the virus. 
• Sustained Increase in Outpatient Visits - Flagged if increasing trend of at least 5 days in the number of people going to a health care provider with COVID symptoms who then receive a COVID confirmed or suspected diagnosis. Provides information on the health care seeking behavior of the population and a sense of how concerned residents are about their current health status and the virus.
• Sustained Increase in New COVID-19 Hospital Admissions - Flagged if increasing trend of at least 5 days in the number of new hospitalizations due to COVID. Important indicator of hospital burden and disease severity.
• Intensive Care Unit (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. Provides an indication of the capacity available to manage a possible surge of severely ill patients.

Like the Governor did last night, Dr. Thomas urged all Ohioans to wear a mask.  He noted in particular that all counties in Ohio are under at least Level 1/yellow alert because the disease is moving in all counties and everyone must take steps to protect themselves. 

Lt. Governor Husted announced  that the Ohio Development Services Agency has awarded $20 million in grants through the Retooling and Reshoring Grant Program to manufacturers looking to produce PPE in Ohio. Sixty-eight (68) companies received grants of up to $500,000.  The grants will help create 829 new jobs, retain more than 130,000 existing jobs, with more than half of the grants going to small businesses.  The grants should help build the PPE supply chain in the state to make sure we do not have shortages again.  Lt. Governor Husted also said that to date JobsOhio has distributed over 40 million units of PPE around the state.  Next week, JobsOhio will join with their 6 regional partners to distribute PPE kits (masks, hand sanitizer, etc.) to businesses around the state. 

Upcoming Calfee events

Discussion with Calfee and U.S. Congressman Troy Balderson, Monday, July 20, 1:30-2:00 pm ET: RSVP here

If you missed a prior webinar and would like to catch up, please visit: Calfee Webinars

Other items of note

• Ohioans filed 35,422 initial claims for unemployment compensation last week, according to the Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS). The number represented an increase from the previous week's total of 33,483.  ODJFS reported Ohioans filed 429,638 continued claims last week – down 346,664 from the state's peak earlier this year.  The agency said it has sent more than $5.2 billion in unemployment compensation payments to more than 747,000 workers over the past 17 weeks.  The U.S. Department of Labor reported 1.3 million new claims were received nationwide last week, about even with the previous week.
• Nearly 66,000 new virus cases were reported nationwide Wednesday. It marked the 37th consecutive day that the seven-day average of new U.S. infections has trended upward.  The U.S. death toll has surpassed 134,000.
• Target, CVS and the grocery chain Publix on Thursday announced new policies requiring customers to wear masks, as the retail world takes new steps to try to slow the novel coronavirus pandemic amid an explosion of cases.  Their moves came a day after Walmart, Kroger and Kohl’s announced similar new policies, and Alabama, Montana and the city of Tulsa enacted new mandates for facial coverings.
• The first randomized clinical trial testing hydroxychloroquine as an early treatment for non-hospitalized patients showed the drug was no more effective for mild covid-19 than a placebo.  The trial results were published Thursday in the “Annals of Internal Medicine.” The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Ohio COVID-19 Data Curves

The following are graphic representations of reported cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths using Ohio Department of Health data and expanded CDC definitions.

Thursday – 1,084,732 tested – 9.30% of the population – 26,133 additional tests

Note: For an archive of all COVID-19 related First Alerts from Calfee, which are separate from these emails and focused on specific business topics, please visit the Calfee COVID-19 Resource Center: https://www.calfee.com/covid-19-resource-center