Red Level 3 means older Ohioans and those with medical conditions associated with COVID-19 complications should consider avoiding unnecessary contact with others, such as social gatherings, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
Butler County was one of 11 Ohio counties under red alert in the state’s coronavirus advisory system, Gov. Mike DeWine announced Thursday. Of those, seven are new to the red alert, he said.
The new red counties in the state include Ashland, Richland, Hamilton, Clermont, Muskingum, Pike and Scioto. Butler, Montgomery, Mercer, and Putnam remained in the red from last week.
Two weeks ago, there were five red counties, the lowest since DeWine introduced the four-level advisory system July 2. Purple is the highest level, but no county has been placed there.
DeWine said after talking to Butler County General Health District officials he was told that Miami University is reporting 20 to 25 new cases a day.
He said Butler residents are hosting too many large gatherings, and not enough Ohioans are wearing masks or keeping proper distance, three reasons for the rise.
Butler County has reported 4,765 total COVID-19 cases, according to the Butler County health district’s latest statistics. Of those, at least 1,458 have been Miami University students. There also have been at least 106 deaths in the county.
The number of newly reported coronavirus cases in the state increased by 1,327 on Thursday from the previous day’s report, according to the Ohio Department of Health reports. The new cases bring the 21-day rolling average for new cases to 1,011.
In all, 155,314 people have had COVID-19 in Ohio; 134,216 are presumed recovered, according to the ODH.
The number of people who has died is up 13 to 4,817.
Also at the press conference, Dr. Abigail Norris Turner, an infectious diseases epidemiologist and associate professor at Ohio State University, released results from a coronavirus study that was conducted in July. She said more than 700 Ohioans were tested and 0.9 percent had active COVID-19 and 1.5 percent had antibodies for COVID-19.
Based on those “relatively low” percentages, Norris Turner estimated 80,000 Ohioans had coronavirus when the study was conducted in July and 133,000 had past infections out of about 10.3 million Ohio adults.
It’s estimated that between 50 to 70 percent of the population has to have had the virus to prevent it from spreading widely.
DeWine said the only answer is a vaccine.
“We’re not going to work our way into this for years," he said. "What we’ve got to do is hang in there: keep this virus low, keep our foot on its neck and wait.”
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