COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine warned Tuesday that the long-awaited arrival of a COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t mean the state’s coronavirus troubles are over.
Ohioans must continue to be vigilant in protecting against the spread of the coronavirus even as eight more hospitals received doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, he said. Frontline medical workers such as doctors and nurses are first in line to receive doses.
Case numbers are still at record highs, and DeWine said there were more people with COVID-19 in intensive care on Tuesday—1,311—than were hospitalized in total with the coronavirus at the peak of the summer surge.
“The rest of December, January, February are probably going to be hell unless we turn this thing around, just to be blunt,” the governor said.
The 7-day rolling average of daily new cases in Ohio has risen over the past two weeks from 8,251 new cases per day on Nov. 30 to 12,329 new cases per day on Dec. 14, according to an Associated Press analysis of data provided by The COVID Tracking Project.
The 7-day rolling average of daily deaths in Ohio has risen over the past two weeks from 58 deaths per day on Nov. 30 to 76 deaths per day on Dec. 14, according to the data.