In the coming weeks, Governor Mike DeWine says that the state of Ohio is probably going to have to double its hospital capacity to meet the needs of coronavirus patients.
In recent days, officials have started to warn of what they’ve called a coming storm - the people who may have already contracted coronavirus, but aren’t sick yet.
If too many people get too sick too quickly, the hospitals get overwhelmed. So the state is approaching the problem from two angles: expanding healthcare capacity - and keeping people from getting each other sick.
"We're working on expanding capacity. We do not know exactly at this point what the capacity will have to be, but we know that's going to be a lot, lot bigger," said Governor Mike DeWine. "I was talking to the governor of Maryland the other day. They're almost going to double their capacity."
But, DeWine and Health Director Amy Acton both said today that social distancing has been working.
"Our collective work together in Ohio decreased that impact on our health care system by anywhere from 50 to 75 percent. That's crucial. But we've got to do it even more because we are buying time," said Dr. Acton.
So, by staying apart we’re all flattening the curve. But we still need to flatten it further. Acton says at Ohio’s peak surge, we may see 6,000 to 8,000 new cases of coronavirus each day.