COVID Cases Rise In Ohio, Doctor Calls It 'An Uptick, Not A Surge'

COLUMBUS, OH —The Ohio Department of Health on Thursday reported 6,890 new COVID-19 cases during the past week —April 15-21 — which was a 43.30-percent rise over the previous week.

In fact, it was the third consecutive week that new case totals have risen.

The department of health had reported 4,808 new cases for the week of April 8-14 and 3,828 new cases for the week of April 1-7.

The state began reporting its COVID statistics weekly in March after previously reporting them daily.

Also up this past week were hospitalizations. The department of health reported 428 hospitalizations for the week of April 15-21, which was 111 more than the previous week.

However, Joseph Gastaldo, an infectious disease specialist at Ohio Health, told NBC 4 in Columbus that the rise in COVID cases and hospitalizations should not be cause for alarm.

"It's not surprising," Gastaldo said. "I do want to emphasize the word uptick, and not surge. What we have going on nationally now are subvariants like BA.2, and they are more transmissible."

Gastaldo continued: "There is a slight uptick in hospitalizations. But if you look at hospitalizations in Ohio during the Omicron surge, we are nowhere near that. We don't know with certainty how this all is going to settle out. But it does not appear that it will result in a hospitalizations surge and an increase in deaths."

In fact, though 94 more Ohioans did die this past week due to COVID, that number is down from 100 deaths the previous week. There were 124 deaths two weeks ago and 249 deaths three weeks ago. The 94 deaths were the fewest reported in a week in Ohio since there were 75 in mid-August 2021.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 1,469 COVID cases in the seven Greater Cleveland Counties this past week, and COVID case rates increased over the previous week in all seven counties.

In Cuyahoga County, there were 809 reported cases, which was a 43.69-percent increase in COVID-19 positive cases over the previous seven days.

Medina County reported 57 cases (a 171.45-percent increase), Lake County reported 134 cases (a 106.15-percent increase), Lorain County reported 133 cases (a 101.52-percent increase), Summit County reported 257 cases (a 96.18-percent increase), Geauga County reported 32 cases (a 45.45-percent increase) and Portage County reported 47 new cases (6.82-percent increase).