As Cuyahoga County has reopened, coronavirus cases have spiked.

That was expected, though state and local officials have repeatedly asked and essentially begged people to use masks, frequent hand washing and social distancing to prevent as many transmissions as possible as offices, restaurants, retail shops, gyms and more have welcomed employees and customers for the first time since the pandemic started.

There were 484 new cases in Cuyahoga County in the past week, not including the city of Cleveland, which reports its cases separately, Board of Health Director Dr. Heidi Gullett announced at today’s press briefing.

There have been 186 total deaths in the county, again not including Cleveland, which has had 50 additional deaths. The median age of death is 81 years old. A 36-year-old county resident died from COVID-19 this week.

Since it takes up to 14 days for symptoms to present themselves, the most recent infections would date back to around May 14.

Yes, there is more testing in Ohio, but that doesn’t account for what we’re seeing.

“Our testing is more than in March and April but it’s not substantially more this week and we have substantially more cases this week, so I do think it’s a reflection of people venturing out of their homes more and being interactive more,” Gullett said. “This is the biggest weekly increase we’ve had since the pandemic hit our community.”

There were actually fewer tests than the week before, according to the board of health, with 13,310 conducted from May 20th to May 26th compared to 15,726 from May 13th to May 19th.

The spike in positive cases can be traced to people returning to work and interacting with others, Gullett said.

“We get daily reports of employers that have positive cases, so that’s an increasing area of cluster for us because people weren’t out working, so we’re seeing now pivoting our cluster investigation response strategy to reflect more community clusters,” she said.

The county also released this week’s update zip-code breakdown of confirmed cases, which shows the most patients in the far eastern suburbs, near west side areas, and southern suburbs like Parma and Seven Hills.

This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2020.

Vince Grzegorek has been with Scene since 2007 and editor-in-chief since 2012. He previously worked at Discount Drug Mart and Texas Roadhouse.

9 replies on “Cuyahoga County Ties Biggest Spike in Coronavirus Cases Since Pandemic Started to People Being Out and About”

  2. The true experts — the epidemiologists, the infectious disease people, have told us this repeatedly this would happen. But about half the population here does’t believe it. They believe THEY are the experts, armed with one year of high school biology and rumors they get from their Trump-worshipping websites. These are the same fools who refuse to wear masks in stores – because their hero Trump won’t wear one. We’re going to learn the hard way.

  3. My parents, both over 85 years old, one with cardiopulmonary issues and the other with an immunodeficiency disease, will probably die before Christmas because a bunch of greedy business types need to make money and have convinced their moronic acolytes that going to their local hillbilly bar is a constitutional right. How long are we going to let these dumbasses run our lives?

  4. Except for occasional trips to the Metroparks, I am in week twelve of
    mind-destroying house arrest, and it sucks, but I’m still breathing. I’m going back to work part-time in June…mostly so I can begin to GTFO of the house. My doctor told me I’m compromised (decades of smoking) but I’m willing to take the risks involved.

    I was fully expecting to stay locked down for at least the entire summer, and I thought society and the economy would be doing the same, so we could lick this thing in maybe six or eight months. And I expected a vaccine by the end of the year. I thought wrong, on all counts.

    The fifty untied states have all caved in to the demands of their corporate greedhead puppetmasters, who have now seen to it that this crisis will last for years to come, and that tens of thousands of additional American deaths will occur every month, indefinitely.

    Apparently, a thousand or two deaths every 24 hours are the “acceptable losses” associated with Americans’ God-given right to go to the mall and stuff themselves at every local eatery. I don’t care if I never set foot in another restaurant for the rest of my probably-shortened life…and if half of them go under, tough titty. At least I’ll still be alive…and I just want to remain alive. Wheezing to death on a ventilator is not the way I want to go.

    I consider all those who defiantly refuse to wear a mask…and who are prematurely agitating for “normalcy”…to be my mortal enemy, and an enemy of both my own future and the future of my country. Why? Because…through their willful stupidity, ignorance, and uncaring selfishness, they are trying to kill me.

  5. Jesus, who would’ve thought? Doesn’t take a PHD to figure out the fact that nothing at all has changed. Get ready for at least another 100k deaths just because Trump and friends want to be able to point at a supposedly great economy during election time, who cares how many people have to die to make that possible? Certainly not the orange orangutan and his fellow Republitard ghouls.

    The only solace I take from this is some of those 100k deaths are sure to be these braindead morons crowing for states to reopen and refusing to wear masks as some kind of retarded political statement. Let em all die, sooner rather than later so the rest of us with half a brain can move on.

  6. What vaccine? Oh you mean Moderna? That was just a cash grab. Slush fund stock-tip pump and dump.

    Sure, there will be others that claim to have the Holy Grail. But I think as time ticks by, and the months drag on… the results will be non-existent. After all, they suck at making flu vaccines. And we’ve had flu every year for decades. This is totally new. Never been done before.

    Corona viruses are in the same family as the common cold. Don’t you think if Big Pharma could have come up with a treatment or vaccine for the common cold and could sell it to the masses and make cash – they would have already? C’mom. They would have.

    No one has.

  8. Failure on so many levels. How many people had 3 months salary in a rainy day fund before the pandemic decimated so many jobs? How many people don’t understand that singing, yelling, moving air, etc. enhance transmission? How many people think that the virus gives a damn about your religion or what your politics are? Whether you’re protesting Amy Acton or smashing windows because of police conduct 4 states away, you are increasing your likelihood of infection. Morons in Columbus cut the education budget for schools and are planning on blowing the rainy day fund on construction projects when everyone knows that schools are the most prevalent location for the spread of contact parasites such as lice let alone a readily transmissible virus like SARS-CoV-2. Show me a kid under 9 who can reliably socially distance themselves without constant adult supervision.

  9. Die, Minnennial, Die.
    Hope your crappy hour is among your last.

    All you worthless pieces of shit deserve to wheeze to death for your selfishness and your stupidity. Get that ventilator ready, doc.

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