Wood and Lucas Counties remain in the “red” for COVID-19 spread
Governor Mike DeWine’s Thursday COVID-19 update was significant, after concerns of one NW Ohio going “purple”.
TOLEDO, Ohio — When Ohioans were told early in the pandemic to flatten the curve (and they did so), they probably didn’t expect that 8 months later that their progress would be flattened, as well.
Thursday, Ohio reported 8,921 COVID-19 cases, 396 new hospitalizations, 33 more ICU admissions and an additional 82 deaths reported since Wednesday.
Also Thursday, it was announced that 5 new counties would go “purple”, including Richland, Portage, Stark, Summit and Medina. Wood County and Lucas County remain at the “red” COVID-19 alert level, but there’s still high incidence of virus spread within both counties. Wood was on the watch list to go purple last week, as pictured.
Franklin County was previously a “purple” county, but has since dropped to the “red” alert level. Despite that new designation, health experts say the county isn’t out of the woods just yet.
“Franklin County has gone from purple to red, but this does not mean that Franklin County is out of the woods. We still have a rate of cases that is six time higher than the definition of high incidence. That is not good. We are not on our way down yet,” said Dr. Andy Thomas of the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
This story will be updated with new information.
