COVID-19 ADVISORY: Thank you to all the citizens, healthcare workers, essential workers, and responsible folk who are giving your best every day in this ongoing fight. For those believing this still does not pertain to them…here are the numbers from the ODH website about about the case numbers have evolved with this situation:
Reported number of new cases in the last 24 hours:
1/13/2020 7 new cases
2/13/2020 2 new cases
3/13/2020 158 new cases
4/13/2020 514 new cases
5/13/2020 605 new cases
6/13/2020 571 new cases
7/13/2020 1,804 new cases (second spike)
8/13/2020 992 new cases
9/13/2020 605 new cases
In one month, here is the change in how daily cases are rapidly increasing:
10/11/2020 1,412 new cases (beginning of second surge)
10/12 /2020 2,484 new cases
10/26/2020 3,606 new cases
11/02/2020 5,131 new cases
11/10/2020 6,508 new cases
11/12/2020 7,101 new cases
....
12/10/2020 11,738 new cases
...
Our state is at max capacity for being able to input data. THe. numbers have not. plateaued. Our abilities as human beings are at max capacity to try to reach as many people as possible. Please, help us.
This huge ramp-up took just a month in November, and it has not even started to plateau yet. The surge is here, and our hospital systems are already buckling under the pressure. If you are unaware of how this is moving in your community, it is time to recognize that this affects all of us and for you to seek out information that maybe you felt overwhelmed to take in before now, or just "did not have the time." Ignorance or "pleading the fifth" or not wanting to watch the news "because it is depressing" are not options anymore.
For those who have been on this from the beginning, I salute you. For those who came onboard when they realized the potential implications, I am with you. For those just joining now, welcome. Here is your gift bag and complimentary seat belt because we need to buckle up.
It is irresponsible at best, and communally negligent at worst, to not observe the guidelines that pertain to all Ohioans regarding the escalating COVID-19 crisis. This includes gathering in group of ten or more…or with anyone not in your immediate “bubble.” It means “complying with the health department,” or just generally cooperating with local and state health officials, places of business, and other entities in providing information and following guidelines set up to protect all of us. It includes not traveling within, or certainly out of, the state for any non-essential reason.
When travel is necessary it includes practicing a true quarantine, not a “partial” quarantine, when leaving/returning from a state that is not your home. There is no such thing as a “partial quarantine”, but it is what many citizens claim to loved ones, and themselves, to inaccurately clear their moral conscience. For the record, quarantine refers not to the safety practices we all do every day (e.g. wearing a face covering), but rather staying in your home, on your property, for 14 days while actively monitoring your temperature and noting any symptoms as they arise while not allowing others into your home or property.
It goes without saying that compliance with wearing masks, washing hands properly, and starting, not maintaining, correct physical distancing will be the determining factor for how we as a state collectively live our lives for at least the next six months. Those people who choose to travel for Thanksgiving, your quarantine after a negative test would begin 11/12/2020 and last through Thanksgiving day. I hope people prepared and planned for that if that is what they chose to do. For Christmas it would have been 12/13/2020. For those who did not observe this for holidays this year, the WHO, CDC, and ODH have collectively made a statement that you are making a decision that whatever you are doing to break quarantine is “worth the lives of the people who you will gather with and more.” Gov. DeWine adds, “it’s not worth someone’s life. It’s not worth someone dying for normalcy.” He goes on to say: “It’s my hope, my prayer is we will all see what is actually happening in Ohio.“
It is truly that simple. That is how this virus works. This is not new information.
I am aware that it is burdensome.
I am aware that it is not fair.
I am aware that we are ALL sick of it.
But it remains the truth. Please, as you consider what you give thanks for this year and next, reflect on your own choices and how you have served or not served this community with your actions. Because this virus does not speak any particular language. Actions, not words, will be what pull us through this immensely difficult time. Together.
Let us refuse to give up on each other out of tiredness, anger, or sadness.
Let us embrace the hope with a new promising vaccine and alternative vaccine trials on the way.
Let us choose our actions not for ourselves, but for the 11.7 million people who are affected by the choices we make at an individual level.
Make decisions for others the way you want others to make decisions for you.
We are in this together, Ohio.
Prepare, don't panic.
-Allison
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