OHIO, USA — Governor Mike DeWine announced Tuesday that COVID-19 hospital admissions in Ohio had been declining since peaking in mid-July, but hospitalizations are now trending upwards with an increasing number of hospitalizations in rural Ohio.
The average age of hospitalized patients has also gone up in recent weeks. Ohioans 60 and older now account for approximately 70 percent of COVID hospital admissions as compared to 50 percent of hospitalizations in July.
"This is a relatively new trend. In fact, in recent weeks Ohioans 60 and older now account for about 70% of covid hospital admissions,” said Governor DeWine. "As we said earlier in August and September, spread among the young and healthy will eventually impact those who are older and more vulnerable, which is why it is so very important that younger Ohioans do all they can to prevent spread.”
Regionally, the western part of the state has been seeing an increase in hospital admissions and relatively fewer hospital admissions have been occurring in northeast and central Ohio. All regions of the state currently have adequate hospital capacity.
Dr. Amy Edwards of University Hospitals say hospitals are not filling up locally.
"So far we are well below capacity even though hospitalization rate is going up slightly, it's not ballooning out of control but it certainly is a sign that things are moving in the wrong direction so we’d like to put a check on it now before it gets out of control,” said Dr. Edwards. "But I'm going to tell you if we start going backwards and our hospital rate start to fill up and our hospitals start to get full, I'm going to be afraid because people are going to die that don't need to die."
"Even the leader of our great country can get the virus, it can happen to anyone, no one is immune,” said Governor DeWine. “All these things are within our control. This virus is the enemy of our freedom."