Vanderhoff: Lorain County joins others in northern Ohio to drop below 'high' COVID transmission

Lorain County has joined eight others in northern Ohio that have dropped below the threshold for what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers "high" levels of COVID-19 spread, Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said Thursday. In a news conference, he said last week was when Cuyahoga County became the first Ohio county to fall below 100 cases per 100,000 population — the CDC's threshold for high levels of community transmission — since the omicron surge. "Since then, eight more northern Ohio counties have fallen below that mark," Vanderhoff said. Those include Lorain, Geauga, Holmes, Lake, Ottawa, Sandusky, Stark and Summit counties. "As you recall, northern Ohio was the first and hardest-hit area during the omicron surge, right on the heels of the delta wave," Vanderhoff said. Updated numbers released Thursday afternoon by the Ohio Department of Health showed Lorain County had the fifth-lowest rate of COVID-19 spread in Ohio over the two-week period from Feb. 10-23, with 79.4 cases per 100,000 population. Ohio as a whole reported 160.7 cases per 100,000 population over those two weeks. Although Vanderhoff described the drop in cases as a welcome relief, he said omicron is not quite done yet. When an area's case rate is between 50 and 100 cases per 100,000 residents, he said the CDC considers that to be "substantial" levels of community transmission. The CDC recommends continued prevention measures when community transmission is considered substantial, Vanderhoff said. "All 88 of our counties remain above that threshold. The fact is that COVID-19 is still a real presence in Ohio, and as much as we look forward to declaring that we are in the all clear, the data still point toward caution and tell us we're not quite there yet," he said. Still, recent numbers have provided reason for optimism. Hospitalizations in Ohio for COVID-19 are at their lowest level since late last summer, Vanderhoff said. "Where once there were more than 6,700 Ohioans hospitalized with COVID-19, as of (Wednesday), there were 1,345, the lowest level of hospitalizations we've seen since August," he said. Ohio Department of Health data released after the news conference showed the number had dropped even further, falling to 1,264 coronavirus patients hospitalized in Ohio as of Thursday afternoon. Continued declining case counts across Ohio provided more good news. The state is averaging about 2,800 new cases per day over the last few weeks, Vanderhoff said, including several days with fewer than 1,000 new cases reported. He said Ohio experienced more than 20,000 new COVID-19 cases per day in the heart of the omicron variant surge in January, with a rate of more than 2,200 cases per 100,000 residents. Ohio's statewide case rate has dropped from 2,200 cases per 100,000 residents then to 174 cases per 100,000 residents now. "That is more than a 90 percent drop from omicron's peak," Vanderhoff said.