Mapping Ohio’s 28,952 coronavirus cases, updates, trends

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio’s 1,720 known coronavirus-related deaths are spread across 66 of the state’s 88 counties, with total cases now reaching 28,952, the Ohio Department of Health reported Tuesday.

This map and data is updated frequently: see this link for the latest Ohio coronavirus maps.

The death total increased 3.8% from 1,657 the day before, while the case total was up 1.8% from 28,454.

The number of deaths reported daily for the last week were 63, 32, 15, 29, 47, 79 and 16. The reports lag several days from the actual date of death and sometimes are reported by the state in clusters.

Separately, data from the Ohio Hospital Association said there were 913 coronavirus patients in reporting hospitals across the state, with 365 in intensive care units. These numbers have trended down over the last few weeks.

The state’s case total has gone up daily by 498, 531, 449, 520, 597, 636 and 471 over the last week. Higher increases in mid-April were tied heavily to stepped-up testing in prisons, even among inmates without symptoms.

The prison department on Monday reported 5,391 cases to date (4,433 inmates and 958 staff), 79% of whom have recovered.

The daily increase in total cases has been under 4.2% since April 22. In March the daily increases were often above 20%, and sometimes above 40%.

Increased testing in recent weeks could cause the number of reported cases to continue to rise, though expanded testing is viewed by Gov. Mike DeWine and other state officials as a key to containing the spread of the virus.

A total of 277,602 tests have been conducted, up 61,312 in the last seven days. In comparison, there were 56,452 tests the previous week, and 37,132 two weeks ago.

Ohio unlike some other states does not provide information on the number of current cases remaining, excluding those who no longer have coronavirus, saying that information is not available. This information is provided only by the prison department, and by the health department for nursing homes.

Yet health officials have said coronavirus often runs its course in 14 days, longer for the most severe cases, indicating that many known cases no longer exist. Most of the known cases are older.

Among the cases reported to date, excluding those who have died, 5,427 have had an onset in the last two weeks. Nearly four times as many – 21,805 – are older cases.

The state is now reporting that the onset of symptoms was as early as January for seven cases. Two of those cases were in Miami County, with the others in Lake, Montgomery, Richland, Summit and Warren counties.

The age range for confirmed cases to date is from under 1 to 109, with a median age of 50. The median age for deaths is 80.

Just over half of all deaths (902 of 1,720, or 52.4%) have been to people age 80 and over. This age group accounted for 44% of deaths from all causes nationally in 2017.

About half of Ohioans are under 40, yet only 17 people in this age group are known to have die with coronavirus, 12 in their 30s and five in their 20s.

The counties with the most deaths are Lucas (209), Franklin (193), Cuyahoga (183), Mahoning (156), Hamilton (117) and Summit (113).

For the deaths in which race was reported, 80.4% are white, and 17.2% are black. Yet for total cases, 64% are white and 32% black. Ohio’s population is 81.9% white and 13% black, census estimates say.

Among all cases reported to date, 5,117 have been hospitalized, including 1,357 in intensive care units. These totals were 4,998 and 1,328 on Monday, 4,921 and 1,305 on Sunday, and 4,870 and 1,300 on Saturday.

The counties with the most cases are Franklin (4,706), Cuyahoga (3,463), Marion (2,524), Hamilton (2,138) and Pickaway (2,025). Franklin (Columbus), Cuyahoga (Cleveland) and Hamilton (Cincinnati) are Ohio’s most populated counties. Marion and Pickaway have high numbers of prisoners with COVID-19, as do Franklin and Belmont to a lesser extent.

The statewide total of cases was 25,250 a week ago.

The first three cases were confirmed on March 9. The total topped 100 on March 19, exceeded 1,000 on March 27, went over 10,000 on April 18, and topped 20,000 on May 4.

The state on April 10 began new reporting standards to include more types of testing and cases identified from non-testing evidence. This has resulted in 1,846 “probable” cases being included in the total cases reported for Ohio to date.

Corrections in the data are made from day to day by the state. Sometimes the state has reduced the number of cases in individual counties from one day to the next as corrected residency information is received

The chart below is based on the most recent case data from the Ohio Department of Health. Cleveland.com calculated the cases per 100,000 rates based on 2019 census population estimates.

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Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner. See other data-related stories at cleveland.com/datacentral.

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