Ohio is seeing an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospital admissions, causing concern among health experts. Though Gov. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) hasn’t made any policy changes, he says it's time for Ohioans to increase their efforts towards slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
The daily increase of COVID-19 cases hit a record high twice this week, which has DeWine raising the alarm.
"There's a red tide flowing all around the state of Ohio. Virtually everybody in Ohio is now living in a high incident, high rate of spread area, that's something that we can do something about though," says DeWine. "It is not inevitable, this spread of the virus can be slowed down. It can be reversed, it's totally within our hands to do it, we have the ability to do it."
While he’s not calling for more shutdowns, DeWine emphasizes that Ohio has been in a similar position before and the spread of the virus was slowed by social distancing and masks.
DeWine says there are three main policy goals that can help fight COVID-19, this includes the development of a vaccine, practicing mitigation efforts, and ramping up testing.
"We are focused on more and more and more testing, faster. We can get it out and we can get out in the correct way. We're going to use that," says DeWine.
More testing is expected to be available in targeted, high-risk areas including long-term care centers.
