Friday May 1 2020
We’ve surpassed 1,000 COVID-19-related deaths in Ohio. Today’s data on the CDC website shows 62,406 total deaths in the United States; 1,062,446 confirmed cases. I still don’t know anyone personally who has been ill with the virus.
The hardest hit are nursing homes and prisons, of course. I was looking through the CDC site to see which Ohio counties have the most cases and Pickaway County is far and above the worst. Ohio’s prison systems account for more than 20% of all confirmed cases. At Pickaway Correctional prison 73% of the inmates have been diagnosed as positive and a staff nurse has just passed away. At Marion Correctional, more than 1500 of about 2,000 inmates have tested positive so far.
With all our precautions and timeliness of action, I was surprised to see NPR state that no other state has as many reported confirmed cases within the prison system. But the catch is the follow up sentence…no other state has tested as many inmates as Ohio. We continue to lead as a state and set the gold standard for others to follow.
Donnatopia 