MIAMI VALLEY — In Indiana, the state has lifted the statewide mask mandate that has been in place for months. However, Ohio’s mask mandate remains in place and Gov. Mike DeWine said it will take the state reaching 50 cases per 100,000 residents to lift all health orders, like the requirement of masks.
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It may be hard to visualize what exactly 50 cases per 100,000 residents looks like, so to give some perspective let’s look at stadiums to get a better idea of what it will take for Ohio to get to that threshold.
Day Air Ballpark, home of the Dayton Dragons, has a capacity of 7,230 fans, so that would mean that less than four fans in a full stadium would be able to have COVID-19 to be at 50 cases per 100,000 people.
If Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati was to sell out for a Reds game at full capacity, which is 42,319 fans, only 21 of those people attending would be able to have COVID-19 to be at 50 cases per 100,000 people inside the stadium.
Is that number realistically attainable? Health experts in Ohio say yes, but the question of how long it will take to get there depends on other factors. The last time the state was at that level was in June.
“Just how much longer I don’t know,” Ohio’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said in March. “We will hit that threshold.”
Vanderhoff said variants will play a key in where case counts go in the state, when he spoke to News Center 7 in March. Those variants, DeWine and Vanderhoff have said are responsible for a new spike in cases in recent days. Most of the variant cases have been found in northern Ohio.
Since the Governor’s announcement of the threshold needed to lift health orders about a month ago, Ohio saw a drop in cases per 100,000 residents for a couple of weeks, but has seen that number increase two weeks in a row.
Cox Media Group
