OHIO — Since November, all counties have remained at Orange Alert Level 2, Red Alert Level 2, and at times, Purple Alert Level 4 on the state's Ohio Public Health Advisory System.
The highest, Purple Alert Level 4, indicates a high level of COVID-19 spread.
But the streak was broken this week after one Ohio county dropped back down to Yellow Alert Level 1: Holmes County. The last county to be in the yellow was Noble County on Nov. 12.
On another note, Allen, Auglaize, Noble and Wayne counties all dropped from red to orange. The rest are in the red.
The change comes as Gov. Mike DeWine announced that all health orders would cease if Ohio dips below 50 cases per 100,000 people for two weeks in a row. As of March 4, the state is currently at around 180 cases per 100,000 people.
After facing increased pressure from some Republican lawmakers like Rep. Jim Jordan to end the mask mandate like Texas and Mississippi did, DeWine said the state isn't ready to do that just yet.
"I can’t tell you exactly the day and the time that we can declare victory, but we will declare victory," DeWine said. "There’s a natural human tendency to let up. Sometimes we take our foot off the gas. All of us are so sick of this virus. We must resist this urge and we must fight to the very end."
So far, 1.8 million Ohioans are vaccinated, which is 15.43% of the state's population.