DeWine Again Asks Ohioans To Stay Home This Holiday

Many feared Ohio's cases of coronavirus would "surge" post-Thanksgiving if families gathered as normal, but data show many in fact heeded the call to say home, leading Gov. Mike DeWine to again urge Ohioans to hunker down for the upcoming Christmas holiday.

To be clear, cases went up, but "thankfully, we have not seen cases go up dramatically," DeWine said during a Monday press conference. "We're happy with what we saw. Overall, we should be pleased with what Ohioans did over that Thanksgiving weekend."

Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, chief medical officer at the Ohio Department of Health, joined the conference virtually to remind everyone of the precautions repeated since March: stay home, wear your mask and wash your hands.

"Don't eat or drink with people outside your household," he advised. "Rethink those travel plans. Let's work hard this holiday to keep each other safe."

Ohioans took important steps to keep each other safe and many refrained from traveling for Thanksgiving, Vanderhoff said, but “in spite of this, our hospitals remain extremely busy with COVID-19. Adding a post-holiday spike to that would create a terrible situation, not unlike what we’re hearing about in other parts of the county. The actions that we are taking right now will show up in weeks. So, after New Year’s.”

He later added people should not relax on the usual protocols because of the vaccine, which began to be distributed to health care workers and nursing home residents and staff last week.

"It's much too soon to expect vaccines to bend that curve," he said.

'Ready And Anxious' For Vaccines

Two Ohio nursing home residents joined the governor via video conference to receive their COVID-19 vaccination. Karyl Junkala a, resident at Bethany Village in Centerville, said she was "ready and anxious" for her shot, later adding with a laugh that she "hardly felt a thing." Another resident at a nursing home in Andover said she "didn't even feel it go in."

Current total confirmed coronavirus cases in Ohio stand at 570,774, with 35,048 hospitalized and 7,423 deaths since the pandemic first began.

ODH reported 6,548 new cases Monday, with 75 deaths reported in the previous 24 hours as well as 301 new hospitalizations and 37 new intensive care unit admissions.

DeWine said the state passed 8,000 COVID-19 deaths as of Saturday.

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