MIAMI COUNTY — Miami County has two more cases and two more COVID-19 deaths.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the county has 27 deaths, up from the 25 reported on Tuesday, Miami County Public Health (MCPH) officials said. One of the deaths is attributed to the nursing home outbreak and one to community spread, according to MCPH officials. A total of 22 long-term care deaths have been recorded with five deaths attributed to community spread, MCPH officials said.
There are now 138 coronavirus cases recorded in Miami County, according to MCPH officials, up two from the 136 reported on Tuesday.
The county’s hospitalization history with the virus remains at 49 residents having been admitted.
MCPH health officials said the slow rise in numbers of cases of recent is good news for the county.
“It is a good sign. It appears that the social distancing has worked and cases are starting to stabilize,” MCPH officials said.
MCPH officials warned, however, that this does not mean it’s time to ease up on safety precautions.
“This isn’t a time to stop taking precautions. Community members need to remember to follow social distancing and follow the guidelines set forth by Governor (Mike) DeWine and the Ohio Department of Health on recommendations on how to keep themselves and others safe with continued social distancing and wearing a mask when social distancing is challenging,” MCPH officials said.
MCPH officials said they have intermittently received a few allotments of some test kits and swabs from the state, and hope to get more with the expanded production that was to begin Wednesday.
In Ohio, there are 17,303 total COVID-19 cases and 937 total deaths, according to Ohio Department of Health Dr. Amy Acton.
There have been 3,421 hospitalizations in the state with 1,014 of those being intensive care admissions.
The age range of those affected by the virus is from under the age of 1 to 106 years old with a median range of 51. The virus has affected 57 percent men and 43 percent women in the state.
Acton also spoke on the continued need for the use of masks on Wednesday and the “social contract” to residents to “don their masks, don their capes, and let’s do this.”
“In the layering of the all these defenses we can have collectively, we’re always aiming at most of us doing the right thing. We’re never going to be able to get everyone to do the exact right thing. But I want us to think about this for a moment …. when we all do this collectively, we are protecting each other,” Acton said.
Acton cited some of the data she has read about the virus from other countries and areas of the nation that didn’t implement as many safety policies as Ohio has in the last six weeks to two months.
“What Ohioans did together drastically decreased our illnesses, and it drastically decreased our deaths compared to many places around the world,” Acton said. “And we didn’t do that just by ordering it, we did it by all of us doing it together.”
For more information, visit coronavirus.ohio.gov.
