COLUMBUS, Ohio — Cleveland is experiencing a slight surge in the number of people occupying hospital beds related to the coronavirus.

What You Need To Know

  • Eye on Ohio: The Ohio Center for Journalism fought the state for access to the number of available hospital beds and other equipment related to COVID-19

  • Eye on Ohio filed a lawsuit in the Court of Claims of Ohio to obtain the requested information

  • In November, Judge Patrick M. McGrath ruled the Ohio Department of Health must provide the requested information

Each week, Spectrum News 1 speaks with Eye on Ohio: Ohio Center for Journalism about the latest hospital bed data. The organization collects the data from the state health department and looks for possible trends.

According to the data, there were 152 available hospital beds designated for COVID-19 patients on April 2 in Cleveland. More than twice that number was available the week before. On March 26, the state reported 346 available beds in that category.

Lucia Walinchus is the executive director for Eye On Ohio.

While the Cleveland area is experiencing an increase in hospital capacity, she said the state as a whole is recovering.

"Overall, we are doing much better and that's certainly awesome and we're really seeing an effect. There's quite a dip once we see the vaccine come into play, but there's still areas that have a lot more infections and we're still seeing the brunt of that. Obviously, if you can't breathe, where the local hospital is, is much more important than going to someplace down the road," Walinchus said.

Click here to view the latest data from Eye on Ohio.

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