Clark County had 62 new confirmed cases this week compared to around 86 new confirmed cases in previous weeks, Patterson said.
He contributed the decrease in new confirmed cases to the lowered cases in long-term care facilities.
“The outcomes in those long-term cares were pretty devastating to the residents and devastating also to the employees,” Patterson said. “It looks like those are starting to come into control.”
Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck, who joined Patterson this week said that a city of Springfield police officer was in “critical condition due to COVID-19.”
Heck said, “I’m happy to say that he is on the mend. He is getting much better and hopefully by early next week he will be back home with us in Springfield.”
During the Labor Day holiday, “we need people just to be very careful because you don’t know,” Patterson said.
Governor Mike DeWine told Ohioans on Thursday during his press conference to be mindful of health guidelines and to avoid large gatherings during the holiday weekend – echoing similar concerns leading up to the Fourth of July, when the state saw a spike in coronavirus cases.
“We can still have fun and get together with family,” DeWine said. “We can travel. But it’s not so much where we go, it’s what we do and how we do it. It’s how we act when we’re with family and friends, it’s the precautions we take.”
“We just need to be super careful so the kids can continue to go back to school on Tuesday and the colleges can stay in and high school sports can continue,” Patterson said.
He explained that the new coronavirus cases this week are associated with the general public.
The health district is not seeing specific outbreaks, except for a “quick rise” in cases at Wittenberg University.”
As of Thursday afternoon, there are 21 active coronavirus cases at the university with one positive case resolved. There are 23 people are awaiting test results, the university’s website said.
“The good thing is we don’t see our case counts going up and up and up,” Patterson said. “We must be doing something right in Clark County with wearing the mask and doing the social distance.”
Clark County had 1,488 cases, 29 deaths and two probable deaths of the coronavirus as of Friday afternoon, according to the Ohio Department of Health’s website.
There have been 128,444 total cases of coronavirus and 4,248 deaths attributed to the virus in Ohio, according to ODH.
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