Gov. Mike DeWine Calls Coronavirus 'A Common Enemy' Across Ohio

CENTERVILLE, OHIO – A day after the state surged past 200,000 coronavirus cases, Gov. Mike DeWine said Ohioans are battling a common enemy that won’t relent until changes are made on a day when state health officials announced more than 2,500 new positive cases and 22 new deaths.

In a news conference Tuesday, DeWine said that 82 of the state’s 88 counties are now considered high-incidence counties with more than 100 new positive cases over the past two weeks. In the past 24 hours, the Ohio Department of Health reported 2,509 new confirmed cases, which takes the state’s total to 202,740 since the pandemic began in the spring.

The 22 new deaths means that 5,239 Ohioans have died since the pandemic started and both Tuesday’s new cases and deaths are above the rolling 21-day average of 1,973 (average cases) and 14 (average deaths per day).

DeWine said that every Ohioan needs to be alarmed the numbers, which, on Tuesday, also included 198 new hospitalizations and 20 new intensive care unit admissions. At the start of the month, DeWine said daily cases were hovering around 1,000 per day and state officials said they believed that number would drop and stay below 1,000 new cases per day.

The governor said that state health officials are seeing a much steeper incline of hospitalizations than that of what was seen this summer and that while hospitals are not yet at capacity, he worries about the way numbers are trending.

“We have a common enemy and that is this virus,” DeWine said. “It’s a virus that will not, the trend lines will not change unless we change them. If we continue to do the same things we’ve been doing, we’re going to end up getting the same results.”

DeWine said that most of the transmission is happening at the community level and he cited people not wearing masks, adhering to proper social distancing guidelines as well as attending crowded public gatherings such as football game day events, weddings, parties and other events where large amounts of people are in place.

DeWine said that the community spread is threatening nursing homes and hospitals as well as the state’s ability to keep schools open. He called on local officials to recommit to efforts and said that he will begin to start meeting with county officials to re-evaluate plans.

Many of the hardest hit counties are among Ohio's smaller counties, DeWine said, and in places where the new case loads are four to five times higher than those required to put municipalities in the high-incidence levels.

“Sadly, the red tide of the virus continues to spread throughout Ohio and into every corner of this state – there’s no escaping it,” DeWine said.

This article originally appeared on the Across Ohio Patch