Today, the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) reported 20,917 new cases of COVID-19. Infections remain at elevated levels as the highly contagious omicron variant continues to spread across the country. The state failed to release COVID-19 numbers on Christmas Day, but it published the new two-day count today.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the omicron variant is becoming the most common coronavirus variant in the nation; it will likely spread more easily than the original virus.
“This variant’s arrival and the continued impact of the delta variant underscore the importance of our best prevention tool, which is choosing to be vaccinated,” said Ohio Department of Health Director Bruce Vanderhoff.
Over Christmas, the state recorded 109 new hospitalizations and 9 new ICU admissions, according to Ohio's COVID-19 dashboard.
There are 4,774 people who are currently hospitalized in Ohio as COVID-19 positive, or about one in four in-patients, according to data from the Ohio Hospital Association (OHA). About one in three patients in the ICU across the state have COVID-19, the association said. The number of patients in the hospital or ICU with COVID-19 has increased more than 10 percent in the last three weeks.
Nearly 60 percent of all Ohioans (6.9 million people) have started the vaccination process, including about 70 percent of the 18-and-older population, state data show. Younger segments of the population are more likely to be unvaccinated.
Information from this article was received from multiple sources, including WCPO-9.