COLUMBUS, Ohio — The coronavirus surge that has hit hospitals in Northern Ohio is now statewide, with medical centers in Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus having announced they are postponing elective procedures, Ohio Department of Health Director Bruce Vanderhoff said on Friday morning.
“Meanwhile, even Ohio hospitals that have not reached this stage are recognizing what’s likely to come and are preparing to take similarly extraordinary steps to meet the demands of this omicron variant,” he said.
Cases per 100,000 residents have dropped 23% in Cuyahoga County, which has hospital officials hopeful.
“We hope to see the number of hospitalizations subsequently, as a lagging indicator, to start to go down,” said Dr. Robert Wyllie, the Cleveland Clinic’s chief medical operations officer.
Testing
About 20,000 people have received coronavirus tests at the W.O. Walker Building in University Circle at 10524 Euclid Ave., Cleveland since it opened Dec. 21, Wyllie said.
Of those, about 39% come back positive, he said.
The testing site is run by the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals and supported by the Ohio National Guard. Wyllie said that the testing site has relieved stress on emergency rooms. Many people visited ERs because they wanted a COVID-19 test, he said.
“And now we’re planning and looking at ways to even test more people who don’t necessarily have transportation or the ability to register, and how do we get them to the Walker site to be tested,” he said.
Omicron
The highly contagious omicron variant is the predominant strain now in Ohio.
“We’re seeing very few delta cases at this time,” Wyllie said. “Almost all, nearly 100%, are omicron.”
Symptoms associated with omicron are different than previous variants. Fewer people lose their senses of taste and smell. Symptoms are “upper respiratory,” with higher viral loads in the mouth and nose, said Dr. Andy Thomas, chief medical officer at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center.
“The reproduction (of virus) in the mouth and nose is probably driving some of this increased contagiousness as well, because there’s more virus in that part of the respiratory system,” he said. “So as you sneeze or cough, it’s just spread a little more easily.”
In South Africa, the omicron variant arrived and peaked in about a month.
In Ohio, officials are hopeful omicron will blaze in and out in the same timeframe, but there are some demographic differences between the populations in Ohio and South Africa, with the median age in South African being 27 years and 39 years in Ohio.
“Having said that, on the ground right now, Ohio is facing a historic challenge in terms of the incredible demands and pressure placed upon our hospitals in our health care delivery system,” Vanderhoff said.
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