Gov. Mike DeWine announced Wednesday that bars, restaurants, and gyms could be asked to close one week from Thursday. Effective immediately, the state is introducing a new restriction on private gatherings like weddings, funerals, and banquets.

DeWine said he would make this major decision next week, allowing those businesses to stay open for now. 

“Too many of our fellow citizens are still dying," he said. “If the current trend continues, and cases keep increasing, we will be forced to close restaurants, bars, and fitness centers. We will look at this one week from tomorrow."

DeWine said he is well aware of the burden this would place on employees and owners of those establishments.

"These are places where candidly it’s difficult or impossible to maintain mask wearing, which we know now is the chief way of slowing this virus," DeWine said.

As for private gatherings, DeWine said it is not the ceremonies causing the problem, it’s the parties afterward. Moving forward, attendees will have to remain seated. Dancing and games will be prohibited. 

The remarks and announcements came in a special address Wednesday evening.

The governor said the pandemic is becoming dire in Ohio, and hospitals are struggling with the staffing challenges. Patient numbers are rising while more and more healthcare workers are in quarantine due to infections or exposure, with staff most often contracting the virus from outside the hospitals. 

“Today the question is whether we have enough people," DeWine said.

If the state does not turn the trends around, hospitals will not be able to provide top quality care, either for COVID-19 patients or for all other patients, he said. Unlike in the spring when traveling reinforcemnts were able to support regional hospital surges like what hit New York, today the whole country is setting records for hospitilizations. The availibility of reinforcements is very limited, hospital officials say.

Worst-case scenarios for hospitals are just weeks away if trends continue, DeWine said.

The governor said he would not be imposing new rules on schools. He said some schools will make changes to virtual learning on their own accord due to the surging case numbers. Schools will not be able to stay open if they cannot keep teachers in classrooms and bus drivers in busses, he said. 

Rural areas are being hit especially hard, DeWine said. In rural areas, residents have been less compliant with the state’s health orders, particularly the state’s mask mandate. In response, he said he is introducing a new order on mask-wearing, building on the order that has been in place since the summer.

Among the new provisions, Ohio stores will be responsible for ensuring customers and employees are wearing masks.

State inspectors will warn non-compliant businesses with a written warning for a first offense. Second violations will bring about closure of the store for up to 24 hours, DeWine said.  

The COVID-19 pandemic is surging to new records in Ohio. On Wednesday, 2,880 Ohioans were hospitalized with COVID-19, while 716 patients were in ICU beds and 328 were on ventilators.

Ohio’s hospitals say the COVID-19 surge has already impacted their operations, impacting staffing the hardest. Eight months into the pandemic, hospital workers are “exhausted,” DeWine said, and now they are being asked to work overtime to respond to the fivefold increase in hospitalizations since late September.

Doctors warn the number of hospitalizations is doubling every three weeks, which could create critical strain in a matter of weeks. DeWine reiterated his concern that today’s cases will strain hospitals as their cases worsen.

“We’ve learned throughout this pandemic what happens today sometimes won’t reveal its full impact for weeks. This is certainly true of hospitalizations. And sadly it’s also true of deaths, leaving us with the stark reality that we simply won’t know the ultimate fate of individuals that are diagnosed today with COVID for weeks or even months."

The governor reaffirmed the state is still under a state of emergency, as Ohio reported 5,874 cases in last 24 hours after a record setting day of more than 6,500 cases Tuesday.

The Ohio Hospital Association praised DeWine’s action Wednesday to protect hospitals, said Mike Abrams, the association’s president.

“Our hospitals in rural and metropolitan areas are aggressively managing capacity at this time, but we must stop the spread,” Abrams said. “The alarming increase in hospitalizations creates a severe strain on health care workers, especially among front-line staff, as hospitals make the necessary personnel shifts to manage these cases.”

Ohio has reported 76 deaths in the last 24-hours, the most daily deaths in more than a month.

The state set a record with 386 new hospitalizations Tuesday, followed by another bad day Wednesday with 253 hospitalizations.

DeWine began the speech with good news, mentioning Pfizer’s vaccine, which could get authorized in the third week of September.

He said the state expects vaccine doses to come in batches. The first batches will be used to protect the most vulnerable and to protect essential health workers, he said.