Even as cases continue to climb, Dr. Glen Solomon, the chair of the internal medicine and neurology department at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine, told the Dayton Daily News last week that people should continue to get boosted.
“People are just tired of the pandemic, and pandemic fatigue has just made people less enthusiastic about going and making the effort to get their booster dose,” he said. “And that’s a huge mistake with omicron, because two doses of an mRNA vaccine is really not effective against omicron. But if you throw in that third dose, we’re talking about 95% vaccine efficacy against severe disease. So with this widely spreading omicron, the booster really makes a difference and it works very quickly.”
The west central region, which includes Dayton, mirrored the state with its 163 COVID patients making up one in 12 hospitalizations, Monday’s daily count is a 30% drop from a week ago for the region — Champaign, Clark, Darke, Greene, Miami, Montgomery, Preble and Shelby counties — and is a nearly 70% decrease from the past three weeks.
Nearly 22% of the state’s COVID hospitalizations are in Southwest Ohio — Butler, Warren, Hamilton, Adams, Brown, Clermont and Clinton. — The region’s 332 COVID hospitalizations recorded Monday account for one in nine hospital patients and is a more than 30% drop from the week before and a 57% decrease from three weeks ago.
Declining COVID cases and hospitalizations led Kettering Health to update its visitor policy.
Some hospital and emergency department patients will be allowed to have three visitors at a time beginning at 8 a.m. Wednesday, the health system announced Monday.
There are some limits to visitors for outpatient procedures and office visits, and no one younger than 12 will be allowed to visit patients. .
The Ohio Department of Health reported 42 new COVID hospitalizations and four new ICU admissions in the last day.
Southwest Ohio represents nearly one-fourth of the state’s ICU patients, and combined with west central makes up one-third of all COVID ICU patients. However, both regions on Monday showed a nearly 60% drop from three weeks ago.
Across Ohio, there are 314 COVID-positive ICU patients, which make up one in nine patients, the OHA reported.
More than 7.2 million Ohioans have at least started the COVID vaccine, representing 61.71% of the state population, including 71.74% of adults, 69.65% of those 12 and older and 65.59% of those 5 and older.
Fifty-seven percent of the state’s population, or more than 6.6 million Ohioans, have completed the vaccine series, including 66.53% of adults, 64.55% of those 12 and older and 60.6% of those 5 and older.
Nearly 3.6 million Ohioans have received a booster dose, including 2,762 in the last day, according to ODH data.
About the Author
