Thread by @GeoffWSYX6

#SOON: a special Monday briefing with @GovMikeDeWine and Ohio’s hospital administrators is coming up. Watch #LIVE on our Facebook page.

I’m working remotely today but needed to meet photographer @DennisWsyx, so we’ve got a mobile set-up outside the @OhioStatehouse

Doctors from @ClevelandClinic, The @OSUWexMed ,@uchealth and @mercy_health are joining in. Watch now!

#NEW: Ohio reporting 11,885 cases of COVID-19. This includes a bunch of backlogged cases from @mercy_health & @ClevelandClinic that did not report for two days, added to today.

This does *not* include the backed-up antigen tests, those are a separate issue — now 15K backlogged.

DeWine: "The high volume of these cases is now overwhelming these systems...causing problems at the laboratories getting information through."

4,358 COVID patients in @OhioHospitals today, per the OH Hospital Association.

DeWine uses this graphic of “ghost people” to demonstrate how contacts outside the Thanksgiving dinner table can spread the virus to those sitting at the table.

Dr. Robert Wyllie at @ClevelandClinic says for the first time today, ventilators were shifted for the reason that the northern Ohio hospitals are beginning to run out of them.

Points out that in 60 days, Ohio has gone from ~600 hospitalized with COVID, to 4,358 today.

Dr. Wyllie: "We need your help, trying to prevent our caregivers from being sick and being off work."

Says there are 970 healthcare workers unable to be at work right now in the northern region (for COVID quarantines, etc.)

Dr. Andy Thomas at @OSUWexMed says the Central Ohio hospital zone (36 counties) had:

400 COVID patients on Nov. 2nd...
500 on Nov. 6th...
600 on Nov. 10th...
700 on Nov. 17th...
800 on Nov. 18th...

Today: 960 COVID patients.

Dr. Thomas: "We can't sound the alarm loud enough."

Dr. Thomas: "In the spring, about 75-85% of all COVID patients in the hospital in Zone 2 were just in Franklin County..."

Now it's 50-60% of COVID patients being served in Franklin County, so the outlying rural hospitals are shouldering more of the load.

Dr. Thomas: "40-50% of all patients in the ICU and 70-80% on a ventilator...are there because they have COVID.

In the next few weeks, every hospital in the state is going to have to make tough decisions" about which beds to staff, which procedures to delay, etc.

Now Dr. Richard Lofgren from @uchealth: "In Zone 3, we have 1,121 COVID patients in the hospital today...we're seeing a proportional amount of spread throughout the entire region: urban, suburban" and rural communities.

Dr. Lofgren: "The (COVID) growth is exponential at this point, and it's not that we're planning for the surge: the surge is here."

Dr. Lofgren: "We're reaching the point where our COVID patients are displacing some of our non-COVID care."

Dr. Lofgren: "We're limiting the number of non-emergency surgeries that might require a hospital stay."

Dr. Lofgren on Ohio healthcare workers: "In Region 3, nearly half the hospitals are reporting a nursing shortage...the impact can't be overstated. They've been working extra hours, really stressed that they keep providing the level of care they've been trained to do."

Dr. Lofgren: "We may need to start thinking about the allocation of scarce resources...we've seen the surge: it is here. We're responding to it, but as the surge increases, we're going to need to make more and more decisions about how we triage and take care of patients."

Finally, pharma doc & @mercy_health president Ronda Lehman: "The number of patients...are coming in at a faster rate than we are discharging. Definitely less people are passing away...but ability to discharge back home & have oxygen set-up, those are all pieces that are taxed."

Doctors say we'll see the results of the "Thanksgiving weekend" — spending time together Thursday-Sunday — about a week later (symptoms) to two weeks later (hospitalization).

Dr. Thomas: "We already have 7 hospitals in our (Central Ohio) zone, delaying some kind of outpatient surgeries where a patient *might* need to spend a night in the hospital."

That's out of 40+ hospitals in region. He points out demand will be down this week for "routine care."

Dr. Thomas says the hospital is pulling in gastroenterologists, other non-ICU healthcare providers now to take shifts caring for COVID patients.

By "the hospital," I meant "the hospitals in Central Ohio." Sorry.

Dr. Wyllie says @ClevelandClinic has 600 patients in hospitals with COVID; they're planning and preparing for a 50% increase (900 patients) by the 2nd week of December.

In Q&A, DeWine is asked if it's time to admit curfew isn't working.

"The curfew hasn't been in very long & doctors will tell you we won't see an impact for a period of time...we know these cases are baked-in for the next several weeks, but we have ability to change the future."

DeWine: "Early on it was easy to say, 'I don't know anybody who has COVID' or 'it doesn't come to my county'...nobody can say that now.

I look at these numbers every day and I just choke."

Question about opening alternative overflow hospital sites.

Dr. Thomas: "In Columbus we had cots, draping set-up at @cbusconventions...that has all been stored but we have a plan in place to get that back online in 14 days if it's needed...our hope is we will not need that."

Dr. Thomas (cont'd): "However, I need people to work there, and right now I would have to generate people by essentially closing down everything else...not just at my hospital, but at @OhioHealth and @MountCarmel."

Dr. Thomas: "If we need to open those, we'll be at far more dire circumstances than we are today."

Question on "rationing care"...

Dr. Thomas: "In Zone 2, we are not at risk of running out of ventilators across the zone — that said, any one hospital might be close to running out of ventilators." They can be shared among hospitals, if need be.

Dr. Thomas (cont'd): "When 1 out of every 4 patients in the state has COVID, and 1 out of 3 in the ICU has COVID, it doesn't take a lot of math to calculate there's going to be some short-changes" eventually in caring for everyone.

While this news conference goes on, a small honking protest of 6-8 cars has begun circling the @OhioStatehouse pushing for federal COVID relief/aid money and a national strategy to beat back the virus.

Ronda Lehman: "We underestimate the size of our bubbles and the people we interact with...it's that false sense of security we're trying to overcome."

Says if you welcome people to your home, you ought to insist they wear a mask & tell them you'll be wearing one, too.

Dr. Lofgren: "We all think of our homes as safe, and so wearing a mask there seems anathema...and yet if you're welcoming someone new into that space, it's exactly the right thing to do."

Question about Ohio State Buckeyes game gatherings & whether @GovMikeDeWine would consider greater action against those types of potential "mini-spreader" events:

"This is personal behavior, individual responsibility. This is an area where the government can't really do a lot."

DeWine (cont'd): "We knocked this thing down...we can do this again.

Frankly, I have the doctors on today because they're the ones who have to deal with this."

Ronda Lehman, on people who say they won't live in fear and "God's will be on my life":

"As a person of faith, my faith directs me to the facts, and my faith directs me to care for my neighbor...it's not 'faith over fear.'"

Question on who recommended a statewide curfew & whether it's effective...

DeWine: "It can't be refuted that personal contact btw groups of people drives up infection...we've never said the curfew is the end-all/be-all.

By closing at 10PM, we at least buy that amount of time."

Dr. Thomas of @OSUWexMed says it's "worth a shot to see if the curfew will have the impact we'd like...it avoids a lot of the downsides of what we saw in the spring, which was the closure of a lot of businesses."

Dr. Wyllie says "what the Governor did was appropriate because we don't have two or three weeks to see what each individual intervention does."

On getting tested before Thanksgiving...

Dr. Lofgren: "It is simply a snapshot in time. You know that day you're not infected...you don't whether that day, you're building up virus and the next day you'll test positive."

Dr. Lofgren: "The concern I most have is that people will now think it's safe to drop their guard, and it's really not."

Dr. Thomas: "If a person hasn't been safe the past 14 days, they could test negative today and be positive by Thursday."

This wraps up after one hour. @GovMikeDeWine returns tomorrow for the regularly-scheduled weekly briefing.