TOLEDO, Ohio — It's been a rough week for the state of Ohio when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Friday, the state announced 1,525 new infections. Typically, I downplay total numbers, but that is a hard number to ignore. It is the state's all-time high.
The state's positivity rate is 6.7. The state is now regularly testing more than 20,000 people a day, which is driving some of the numbers, but we are now in the timeframe where we would be seeing new infections resulting from July 4 gatherings. It would not be unexpected to see those numbers rise in the days and weeks ahead because of gatherings that happened on the holiday. Earlier this week, DeWine said that the hardest-hit counties were reporting that spread was coming from gatherings, birthday parties, funerals, and church services.
In Wood County, the county was raised to a Level 3 on Thursday, meaning there has been a steady increase in infections.
I want to touch on this briefly, because it probably did come as a surprise to many people. The county still has not reported a death since June 1. At this point, there are 54 active cases in the county. On June 30, the National Guard was in Bowling Green and tested 400 people. We don't know how many people tested positive, but even if 10 tested positive, it was enough to elevate the county's numbers.
Now that masks are required, it will be interesting to see if cases fall enough for the county to return to Level 2.
RELATED: Wood Co. hits level red in state's COVID-19 advisory system - What it means and what comes next
On Friday, 131 new hospitalizations were announced in the state of Ohio. There are now 928 COVID patients in the hospital. For the week, the hospitalization count has averaged 840 a day, up dramatically from last week's 695. There are currently 928 COVID patients. Hospital capacity is going to need to be closely tracked in the weeks ahead, and WTOL will be providing updated numbers.
Total ICU patients and patients actually fell, which is positive, but those numbers are still the highest since May.
When we look at current ICU patients, the 7-day average is 276, up from 232 last week. The average daily count for patients on ventilators has jumped to 142 from 117.
Just a reminder about weekend numbers that will be released tomorrow and Sunday: cases have stayed elevated but death and hospitalization numbers are typically much lower. Even the state has admitted to us that these numbers are unreliable during the weekend.