Ohio is seeing a post-holiday surge of COVID cases, but medical officials expect it to spike sometime at the end of January.
During a press conference on Friday, the Department of Health says new coronavirus cases have jumped 247% in the last two weeks. There are just over 6,500 people hospitalized with COVID and 1,300 of them are in intensive care. The Director of the Ohio Department of Health calls what the state is seeing the Omicron tsunami and it is spreading to different parts of the state.
“Our state is experiencing the highest number of COVID-19 driven inpatient hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and patients on ventilators than we have seen throughout the entire pandemic,” says Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, the Dir. of Ohio Department of Health. “And sadly, these beds continued to be filled with better than 9 out of 10 times by the unvaccinated.”
1,200 Ohio National Guard members have been deployed in 40 locations around the state to help with the increase of patients, more guard members will be getting their assignments next week.
