BY OLIVIA SIMPSON

On Thurs., Nov. 19th, Ohio Health Director, Stephanie McCloud issued an Ohio Stay at Home Tonight Health Order. This will last for 3 weeks (Nov. 19th to Dec. 10th) and it requires Ohioans to stay home from 10 pm to 5 am. Also, Greg Kesserman, Hamilton County Health Commissioner, has issued a stay-at-home advisory for those in Hamilton County, encouraging people to only leave their house for essential needs.  

So some might wonder how the current Coronavirus climate compares to the one we saw in March. In short, it’s worse. Below is an analysis of the current Coronavirus circumstance. 

As of Thur., Nov. 19th, Franklin County (home to the city of Columbus) is the only county in Ohio to be shut down. It also no longer has any counties in level 1, indicating that all parts of the state are at an elevated level of risk. The state has gone up 299% in cases since October 17th and it is currently experiencing it’s highest patient counts. 

Hamilton County, itself, is also looking worse and worse each day. It’s positivity rate (rate of someone who was tested getting a positive result) is above 10 percent, in previous months it had been around 4. Last week, Hamilton reported 4,000 new COVID cases. This is shocking because in the 9 months of COVID case reporting, Hamilton County has only reported about 28,000 (14% of total cases within a week).

Ways to stop the spread have remained the same: wear your mask, limit your gatherings, stay at home as much as possible, and keep your distance. On Thur., Nov. 19th, Governor Dewine, on his Twitter said, “We know that Ohioans have it in their power to slow this down.” So as numbers escalate, it is going to be up the average Ohioan to follow the basic guidelines. 

Sources for more information:

• https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/home
• https://www.hamiltoncountyhealth.org/covid19/
• https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/19/covid-19-hamilton-county-residents-urged-stay-home/6342533002/
• https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/resources/general-resources/stay-at-home-tonight-fact-sheet