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With COVID-19 cases at record high levels, Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, the Ohio Department of Health's director, said the virus "is with us for the long haul," but it will eventually go from a pandemic to an endemic.
Vanderhoff reiterated Friday that the best way for people to protect themselves from getting "severe illness and death" from the virus is to get vaccinated.
A pandemic is a disease that spreads over multiple countries while an endemic affects a large number of people in a specific area.
The omicron variant, which has overtaken delta as the dominant COVID-19 strain, may come with a "silver lining," Vanderhoff said.
While omicron is "more contagious" than any other variant, people who get it are "less likely to be seriously ill or die," he said.
But Ohio still reported 666 COVID-19 deaths this week. It's the fourth straight week with at least that many deaths and the only four weeks during the pandemic, which started in March 2020, with that many virus-related deaths. The high point was the week of Dec. 19 to 25 with 692 reported COVID-19 deaths.
The state hit a grim milestone Friday when it exceeded 30,000 total COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic. Ohio was at 30,072 reported COVID-19 deaths Friday.
Also, there's been more than 19,000 COVID-19 cases reported daily since Dec. 29 with the exception of Monday with 18,942.
New COVID-19 cases totaling 19,563 were reported Friday.
Until Dec. 29, Ohio never had even a single day during the pandemic with more than 16,000 new COVID-19 cases reported.
The actual number of cases in Ohio is higher because those who test positive with at-home COVID-19 kits and don't contact medical personnel aren't included in the count, Vanderhoff said.
"There's no question in my mind that the testing numbers, the total case numbers, which are extraordinarily high, are in fact even higher than what we've seen," he said.
During the first seven days of January, the ODH reported 135,734 COVID-19 cases in the state.
The COVID-19 cases in just those seven days is more than the 111,711 reported in last April, May, June and July combined.
Ohio again had a record Friday with 6,570 patients in hospitals with COVID-19, according to the ODH.
The state has set new records daily since Dec. 26 for most people in hospital beds with COVID-19. Of the total hospital beds in Ohio, 26 percent of them Friday were filled by patients with COVID-19, according to the ODH.
Also, a record 1,327 intensive care unit beds in the state Friday were patients with COVID-19. They made up 29.35 percent of all ICU beds in Ohio's hospitals, according to the ODH.
"Our state is experiencing the highest number of COVID-19 driven in-patient hospitalizations, ICU admissions and patients on ventilators than we have seen throughout the entire pandemic," Vanderhoff said. "And sadly, these beds continue to be filled with better than nine out of 10 times by the unvaccinated."
Ohio's COVID-19 hospitalization rate is among the highest in the country.
Vanderhoff spoke Friday before the latest COVID-19 ventilator capacity number was released. It was at a record high of 883 Thursday and declined to 855 Friday.
TEST KITS
Kris Wilster, director of environmental health for the Trumbull County Combined Health District, said the at-home rapid COVID-19 test kits were given out in a "mad rush."
The district had 5,000 test kits, primarily distributed to people on a first-come, first-served basis. A limit of 10 per household was set, but the limit was dropped to one because of the "mad rush," Wilster said. Some of the kits were earmarked for local, public agencies, Wilster said.
The district ordered 2,000 more kits from the state, Wilster said. But, the Ohio Department of Health began using an allocation formula to determine an amount to send local health departments, Wilster said.
When the health district obtains more tests from the state, employees with the nursing division will reach out to people who have requested a kit but haven't received one.
Wilster said the date of the next shipment from the state is not known yet.
In the meantime, testing for the virus is at facilities in the Valley, Wilster said, like local pharmacies.