COVID-19 Spreading In Ohio's Rural Communities Including Clermont, Brown

Updated: 5:13 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine Thursday said that while urban areas are trending down for coronavirus cases, rural counties are starting to see more community spread.

Ohio's overall number of cases has gone down, and the number of hospitalizations and ICU admissions are down as well. But in the 10 counties with the highest virus occurrence, Mercer, Champaign, Lawrence, and Darke counties topped the list.

"The first four counties are what we would normally consider rural counties," DeWine said at his regular coronavirus briefing, delivered this week from his home in Cedarville. "If you go through the rest of the list you do see Lucas – a bigger county – and Franklin, but you also see Perry County, Meigs, and Seneca County, as well as Fairfield; smaller counties."

DeWine emphasized the list is not a "long historical look back" but a snapshot of the last two weeks.

"We do adjust for population by county, so what we're trying to see is, what is the intensity during the last two weeks of the COVID spread and COVID cases in the county," DeWine explained.

DeWine pulled up a map of where all of Ohio's 88 counties stood on the state's color-coded public health advisory scale. Twelve counties are red, including Cuyahoga, with three new additions: Clermont – which had at one time come down from red, but is now back on – Brown and Muskingum counties.

In Brown County, which is red for the first time, "21 percent of their cases throughout this pandemic have occurred in the last two weeks — one-fifth," DeWine said. "While they've had a couple of outbreaks, the number of cases linked to those outbreaks has been low, which indicates significant community spread throughout the county."

Clermont County, meanwhile, saw cases increase throughout June, with about 120 cases a week in early July, DeWine said.

"This was followed by good news: the community was just starting to see those cases come down as we moved through July – down to under 80 new cases in the third week of July," he said. "However, the last two weeks we're seeing cases creep back up."

In addition to cases going back up, DeWine said Clermont County is seeing increases in health care system use for patients with COVID-19.

At 298 cases, Mercer County was "way above anybody else," DeWine said.

This doesn't mean Ohio's urban areas are faring better.

"Urban areas are trending down, but they are still high," the governor concluded. "They are above 100 in most of our cities. The indications aren't going up, but they are at a high level."

DeWine said as Ohio schools resume classes over the next few weeks – many with in-person classes – there is more opportunity for community spread.

During the coronavirus briefing, DeWine also confirmed Dr. Craig Cullen-Terzano, who was killed in Lakewood overnight, worked for the state prisons department.

An overnight standoff between Lakewood police officers and a man there ended early Thursday morning with Cullen-Terzano dead and another man in custody.

The five-hour standoff began when police were called to a home on Clifton Boulevard for a welfare check and found 80-year-old Cullen-Terzano deceased and lying outside.

A SWAT team negotiator persuaded a second man to surrender. His name has not been released and the investigation is ongoing.

“The incident is unrelated to COVID and is under investigation by the Lakewood, Ohio, Police Department. Dr. Cullen was a graduate of Harvard and UCLA, a retired Lieutenant Colonel for the U.S. Army,” DeWine said. A 10-year employee of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections. I'm told that his work ethic and dedication to his job and to the people was unparalleled.”

Part of that dedication, the governor said, was evidenced in Cullen-Terzano’s commute, as “he drove from Lakewood to the Corrections Reception Center in Orient, a long, long ways, every day, a four hour round trip. Our deepest condolences go out to his loved ones and to those who worked with him.”

ideastream's Glenn Forbes and Tony Ganzer contributed to this report.

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