Coronavirus: BMV locations, community pools among businesses reopening after holiday weekend

More businesses are set to reopen after the holiday weekend as a part of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s Restarting Ohio plan.

>>RELATED: Coronavirus: When childcare, gyms, BMV locations, and pools will reopen in Ohio

Tomorrow, May 26, is the restart date for multiple businesses and industries, including all Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles locations, gyms and fitness centers, community pools, athletic and skill training for all non or low-contact sports, bowling alleys, miniature golf, and batting cages.

>>PREVIOUS: Restaurants, businesses prep for holiday weekend

>>DeWine releases new guidelines for non-contact sports, skills training for all sports

Last week, DeWine reminded Ohioans they don’t need to rush to BMV locations to renew expired licenses. Licenses that expired after March 9 are still valid until 90 days after the state of emergency ends, or December 1, whichever comes first. Many services like registration renewal can be done on the BMV’s website at bmv.ohio.gov.

Despite the OK to reopen, some community pools have already made the decision not to reopen.

Also opening later this week are summer day camps and daycare facilities, which are slated to reopen Sunday, May 31.

Next week, banquet centers and catering businesses, both of which serve events like wedding receptions, will be allowed to reopen June 1, with crowd size limited to 300 people. Here are the guidelines for the industry to reopen.

>>RELATED: Catering, banquet centers can reopen June 1

DeWine is not scheduled to have an update today, however he is expected to brief reporters Tuesday on the state’s coronavirus response.

Also expected in the post-holiday week is the release of initial recommendations from the governor’s Minority Health Strike Force.

Last week DeWine said he was deeply concerned by information from the strike force that while African Americans make up 14 percent of Ohio’s population, they represent 26 percent of positive COVID-19 cases, 31 percent of COVID-19 hospitalizations, and 17 percent of COVID-19 deaths in Ohio.

>>Coronavirus: DeWine unveils new tools to combat case disparity in minority communities

“I am the governor of all of Ohio, and when I see something disproportionately affecting some of our citizens, I have a responsibility to do something,” he said. “To augment on the work that we are currently doing on health equity and to address the immediate threats posed by COVID-19 to our minority communities we intend to move forward with the strike force’s recommendations, and we have several additional efforts that are ready to get underway.”

Those preliminary recommendations include (final recommendations are to be issued June 11):

• Establishing culturally appropriate and accessible COVID-19 exposure notification services for communities of color.
• Expanding testing capacity and access for minorities and high-risk populations. Ohio has partnered with the Ohio Association of Community Health Centers, which represents Ohio’s Federally Qualified Health Centers, including 55 Community Health Centers at 378 locations. It has multiple mobile units in 68 of Ohio’s 88 counties.
• Using data to prioritize resources in the communities that have the highest need.
• Developing and launching a statewide, culturally-sensitive outreach campaign that educates African Americans and communities of color on COVID-19, health disparities, and social determinants of health. “Stay in the Fight” is the new campaign’s name and will be focused on the need to stay informed, involved and inspired during the pandemic.

LATEST STATE DATA: As of Monday afternoon, there are 32,477 cases in the state, 1,987 deaths, and 5,511 hospitalizations, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

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

Of the state’s positive cases, 19.5% are from Ohio’s prisons. At those prisons, there has been an increase in testing.

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

There have been 322,419 people tested for coronavirus in Ohio. In the state, 4,887 cases are health care workers, which is 15 percent of the cases.

It is important to note the number of confirmed cases is not a true reflection of actual cases in the state because of the limited amount of testing available. The hope is that the number of cases will be more accurate because of the expansion of the testing standards.

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