CLEVELAND, Ohio - We know that the state has confirmed 81 coronavirus-related deaths and that the numbers for deaths, hospitalizations and cases overall continue to increase by the day.
But there is a lot that is unknown as we head toward the predicted peak of the crisis later this month or in early May.
Here’s a rundown:
Known
The Ohio Department of Health on Thursday confirmed 2,902 coronavirus cases in Ohio. This number has shot up from the first three cases reported on March 9, hitting the 1,000 mark on March 27 and then going over 2,000 four days later on Tuesday.
It’s also known that far more people likely have contracted coronavirus.
As Dr. Amy Acton, director of the Ohio Department of Health, noted Thursday, “most people” who have COVID-19 have not been tested, and doctors are telling people with symptoms to stay at home if they don’t require more attention. Acton has repeatedly referred to the confirmed number of cases as the “tip of the iceberg."
Unknown
Acton said the state has no details for how many of these 2,902 people still have the coronavirus, promising going forward to “do our best to track that.”
“A real understanding of this is going to fall very short for a while," Acton said. One issue is follow-up testing, or the lack of it, especially for those who were never hospitalized.
Coronavirus can run its course in 14 days, Acton said.
Here’s what cleveland.com was able to determine based on the information available (also illustrated in the graphic at the top of this story):
- The onset of symptoms for 63% of the confirmed cases (1,832 of 2,902) are estimated by the state to have been in the last two weeks.
- 43 of these 1,832 have died.
- That leaves a rough estimate of 1,789 active confirmed cases, based solely on the two-week timeframe. This is far from exact. There could be more or fewer remaining cases among the confirmed, depending on the length of infection and whether the starting date was accurately identified.
According to an article published by Dr. Lisa Maragakis, senior director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins Medicine, “Those with mild cases of COVID-19 appear to recover within one to two weeks. For severe cases, recovery may take six weeks or more."
Known
Through Thursday a total of 802 hospitalizations have been attributed to the coronavirus, including 260 in intensive care units. This is up from 233 hospitalizations, with 91 in ICU, on Thursday, March 26.
Total hospitalizations doubled from Sunday to Thursday, and the number of ICU cases nearly doubled.
The hospitalization data is likely a more accurate of an indication of the spread of the virus than the available overall case numbers because, as Acton has said, there has been a focus on testing patients with the most severe problems, as well as health care workers.
Unknown
It is unknown, however, how many people currently are in the hospital with coronavirus, or even how many remain in ICU. Some have been discharged; some of those hospitalized have died.
Acton said she hoped to soon be able to offer better tracking of this information.
She did report on March 24 that overall, Ohio had 3,600 ICU beds, of which 1,300 were vacant at the time.
A spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Health told cleveland.com on Thursday that no more recent information was available for this statistic.
Known
Based on research from Ohio State, the Cleveland Clinic and others, Acton is projecting a peak of new cases daily in late April or by mid-May. On Thursday, she again displayed a graphic based on research at OSU that showed a peak of 10,000 new cases during the week of April 19-26.
Unknown
This projection is for new cases per day, not the smaller number of confirmed cases per day.
Again, Acton has repeated that what the Ohio Department of Health has been able to confirm is likely a fraction of all cases. Limited testing is one issue. Another issue is that some people might have coronavirus without knowing it.
Known
Over the last few days, the daily increase in new cases has not skyrocketed, but the number continues to rise.
On a percentage basis, confirmed cases have gone up 14%, 16%, 14%, 17% and 18% over the last five days. Previous to that, the increases daily were 24%, 31%, 23%, 25% and 28%.
Same goes for the pure number of confirmed cases, but not at the sharp rate feared before the state took mitigating actions such as closing schools, restaurants and later non-essential businesses.
There were 355 new cases Thursday over Wednesday. The daily increases the previous days were 348, 266, 280, 247, 269, 270, 163 and 140. These numbers are based on what the state has reported each day, not revisions officials have later made for older cases based on estimated onset dates.
Unknown
This goes back to available testing once again. It’s unknown how many people have had the virus for sure, and it’s also unknown how many currently have it.
Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner. See other data-related stories at cleveland.com/datacentral.
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