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Mayor Frank Jackson addresses the media (3/11/20).
Two more City of Cleveland residents have died from COVID-19, the city reported Monday night in its regular media update. The patients were a male in his 50s and a female in her 60s. The death toll within the city is now at five.
The good news is that only four new confirmed cases of the virus were reported. Cleveland now has a total of 316 confirmed cases, and the Department of Public Health is in the process of trace investigations to identify close contacts of the victims for testing and monitoring.
Declining numbers of new cases in recent days—while linked in part to insufficient testing—indicate that Ohio has been successful in flattening the curve.
Cuyahoga County still has the highest number of confirmed cases in the state, with nearly 1,200. Its 337 hospitalizations are also more than any other Ohio county. But its 24 deaths are lower than the 31 of Mahoning County, which has been a hot spot for the virus.
In fact, eastern Ohio counties have been so hard hit that Gov. Mike DeWine issued an order yesterday to limit liquor sales in counties bordering Pennsylvania to only those with a valid Ohio ID. The counties affected are Ashtabula, Belmont, Columbiana, Jefferson, Mahoning and Trumbull.
“Any other time, we’d love to have visitors from PA," DeWine said during his daily press briefing, "but right now this creates an unacceptable public health issue.”
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