With one additional COVID-19 death in the past 24 hours, Mahoning County now has a total of 10, the most among Ohio’s 88 counties.
Mahoning County is home to Youngstown and Boardman. With a steady rise in reported cases since the weekend, Mahoning now also leads the state in cases and hospitalizations per capita, with 76.6 and 34.2 per 100,000 residents, respectively.
Mahoning Matters, the digital newsroom that launched last year after the closure of the Youngstown Vindicator, reported that officials there were worried residents may not be taking social distancing measures seriously enough. The local sheriff posted a video message on his Facebook page urging county residents to abide by the state’s stay-home order.
Cleveland.com data guru Rich Exner also spoke with Mahoning County’s public health spokeswoman, who said the cases were not concentrated in any specific area or facility — a nursing home, for example — and attributed the rise to community spread.
Dr. Amy Acton, Wednesday, reported that Ohio now had 2,547 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 679 hospitalizations and 65 deaths. Cuyahoga County has tallied nine total deaths, the second-most behind Mahoning. And with the densest concentration of testing located in Northeast Ohio — at the Cleveland Clinic, UH and MetroHealth — Cuyahoga County also leads the state in total cases and hospitalizations by a wide margin.
But only Miami County, just north of Dayton, has recorded more deaths per capita than Mahoning. Its 6 total deaths, (5.7 per 100,000 residents, compared to Mahoning’s 4.3), were concentrated at an elder care facility.
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This article appears in Apr 1-7, 2020.
76 hospitalizations, so Dewine expects we need arenas and dorms converted to hospitals? What the fuck is going on? This doesn’t make any sense.