COLUMBUS, Ohio — "Like the rest of the nation, Ohio appears to have put the most recent surge behind us. New cases and hospitalizations are at their lowest levels since last July or August.”
That was the message from Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff as he provided an update regarding the COVID pandemic during a press conference Thursday morning. While celebrating the good signs, Dr. Vanderhoff also cautioned that this virus is "has a real habit of throwing us curveballs."
“So, even as we breathe a little bit easier here in Ohio and across the United States, we also need to keep a close eye on events around the world," Dr. Vanderhoff continued. "Our experience with previous surges has shown us that what’s happening in Europe or other highly developed nations has often been instructive and offered us insights and lessons for right here in the United States.”
That brought him to a conversation about the subvariant known as BA.2, which Dr. Vanderhoff said "has an edge" when it comes to being more contagious than BA.1. While BA.2 has been spreading in Europe, Dr. Vanderhoff said we haven't yet seen much of the subvariant here in Ohio.
“Preliminary data from the last few days do indeed suggest that BA.2 percentages could well increase in the coming weeks and months – just as we’re seeing across the rest of the country," he said. "Nevertheless, it’s important to understand that BA.1 and BA.2 are so closely related, there’s good reason to believe that we will not face another BA.2 surge like the one we had with BA.1.”
We streamed live video of Dr. Vanderhoff's COVID press conference, which you can watch in full below:
Dr. Vanderhoff then continued his recommendation for more Ohioans to get vaccinated.
“Vaccines remain our best bet for safely shielding ourselves from severe disease. According to a CDC report released Friday, during this most recent surge adults who were fully vaccinated and boosted, they were 94 percent less likely to be put on a ventilator or to die of COVID-19 than those who were unvaccinated.”
He said that while 66 percent of Ohioans have received at least one dose, that means about one of every three eligible people in Ohio remain unvaccinated.
“There’s more work to be done to get the facts out about vaccination so that we can help more people weather whatever COVID-19 storm awaits us over the horizon," Dr. Vanderhoff said.
His comments come just two weeks after Vanderhoff announced Ohio would now only report new COVID data once per week, which happens every Thursday.
“As the days and weeks pass, it becomes increasingly clear that not only are we leaving the omicron surge behind us but we’re entering a new phase of our experience with COVID-19," Dr. Vanderhoff said during his most recent press conference earlier this month. "Case numbers and community transmission have continued to drop steadily as have hospitalizations.”
Despite the decline in new infections, the Cleveland Clinic is urging everybody to get vaccinated and boosted if they haven’t done so already.
“This virus has shown us time and again that it's unpredictable and while we should enjoy this time, we should not assume the pandemic is over,” a Cleveland Clinic official told 3News on Wednesday. “We do expect additional waves of infections, so it's best to gain protection now rather than when another surge comes.”
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Editor's note: Video in the player above was originally published in a previous COVID story on March 21, 2022.