Coronavirus Pandemic: What you need to know Wednesday

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By WHIO Staff

Gov. Mike DeWine, in his briefing on what Ohio is doing to combat the coronavirus pandemic, said it’s up to individual school districts on how to approach the school year.

“I have every confidence that Ohio’s schools will do everything they can to keep children safe, but any spread happening in the broader community will, without a doubt, be reflected in Ohio’s classrooms,” DeWine said. “If we want our kids to go to school in person, to play sports, to be in extracurricular activities - it’s up to all of us to cut down the spread in our communities.”

The following announcements were made:

  • Mercer, Champaign and Darke are the top three highest counties with highest occurrence of COVID-19 in the state. This is determined by number of cases per 100,000 people. Mercer has 293.9, Champaign has 185.2 and Darke has 164.3. This data takes into account numbers from July 28 to Aug. 10.
  • A map produced by the Ohio Department of Education shows a large area of the Miami Valley is planning on returning to 5-day, in-person learning. Urban areas of Montgomery County show several districts are planning a fully remote plan.
  • DeWine said 325 public districts are planning to return to the classroom full-time, which accounts for about 38 percent of the public schools in the state.
  • 55 districts, which accounts for about 25.6 percent of the state’s public schools, will be doing remote learning.
  • About 24.5 percent of public school districts in Ohio are planning to do hybrid learning, with a split of remote and in-person learning.
  • 78 districts in the state do not have their return plans readily available, DeWine said.
  • DeWine said the most recent data on the percentage of cases in Ohio by age group shows a significant increase in positive cases among younger adults, particularly in the age range of 20 - 29:

(WHIO) COVID-19 percentage of cases by age group (Courtesy/Ohio Dept. of Health)

LATEST STATE DATA: As of Wednesday afternoon, there have been at least 104,248 confirmed or probable cases in the state, 3,734 deaths, and 11,901 hospitalizations, according to the Ohio Department of Health. 82,310 people are presumed to have recovered from the virus in the state.

Ohio has an estimated population of approximately 11.7 million, census records show.

[ Local cases, deaths reported to Ohio Department of Health ]

There have been 1,722,857 people tested for the coronavirus in Ohio, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

A total of 11,655 health care workers have tested positive which is about 11 percent of the cases.

[ Local cases, deaths reported to Ohio Department of Health ]

Things you should know today: