Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton was unable to state how many residents are currently hospitalized with the coronavirus during a Monday press briefing.
The Department of Health says on its website that 2,033 Ohioans have been hospitalized as a result of the virus, but that figure is a cumulative number. As such, the number of people currently hospitalized in the state is likely far lower than the 2,033 total hospitalizations.
“I’ll look into how we can get you that data. I don’t think that’s in the reports I just put out,” Acton said in response to a reporter’s question about current hospitalizations.
The Department of Health said the state had 85 new hospitalizations in the past 24 hours and is experiencing an average of 108 new hospitalizations every five days. Unlike other states, the Ohio Department of Health doesn’t provide any information on its website about the total number of patients who have recovered from the coronavirus.
In Minnesota, for instance, the Department of Health notes that the state has had a total of 361 hospitalizations, but only 157 patients are currently hospitalized.
“The benefit, the plus of us acting early in Ohio is that we really bought some time for the hospitals to mobilize. We were able to free up a lot of equipment. They were able to safely decrease their census,” Acton continued.
The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) predicts that Ohio will reach its peak resource use on Tuesday. According to the model, the state will need a total of 731 hospital beds and has 14,290 bed available.
As of Monday, Ohio had 6,975 COVID-19 cases, 94 of which were counted under the CDC’s expanded case definition. The expanded case definition allows states to count probable cases confirmed by new rapid testing methods and cases in which no test is administered but the patient was exposed to someone with the virus and there is no other likely diagnosis.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Image “Dr. Amy Acton” by Gov. Mike DeWine.
Numbers too low for use in their agenda, is my guess. ??