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One of the few holdouts among state universities in Ohio, Youngstown State University reversed course and mandated face masks for everyone, including those vaccinated against COVID-19, in indoor public settings on campus.
"Masking indoors is yet another way we can help our local communities stop the spread and keep all students, faculty, staff and visitors safe as we return to in-person classes and fully reopen campus on Aug. 30," YSU President Jim Tressel wrote in a Wednesday statement.
Masks aren't mandated for those alone in their offices, while eating or outdoors.
While most other state universities were requiring masks for those in indoor public settings, YSU had resisted until Wednesday.
About 50 YSU Ohio Education Association members and their supporters rallied on campus Friday in opposition to the school's decision to not mandate masks or vaccinations for staff and students, saying it made them feel unsafe. They urged university officials to follow U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to have all persons inside buildings wear masks.
In his prepared statement, Tressel wrote that about 77 percent of the more than 3,000 YSU students and employees responding to a survey sent by the school said they were vaccinated. Also in the survey, the suggested campus protocol most often mentioned, he wrote, was "masking would make me feel better."
Tressel added: "While many universities across the nation have implemented vaccine mandates, that is not an option in Ohio. So again, we very strongly encourage that unvaccinated students and employees get the vaccine."
The university will have vaccination clinics on campus on Sept. 8 and 9.
The CDC list 86 Ohio counties, including Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana, as high COVID-19 transmission areas and the state's other two counties as substantial transmission counties.
High transmission counties have at least 100 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people for the period between Aug. 10 and Monday.
COVID-19 DATA
Wednesday was the 16th consecutive day in which Ohio exceeded 1,000 daily COVID-19 cases. That includes nine that had more than 2,000 cases with four of them exceeding 3,000 reported cases. Those four days of more than 3,000 new cases occurred in the past eight days, including Tuesday and Wednesday.
The delta variant among the unvaccinated, which spreads quickly, is almost entirely to blame for the increase, said Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the Ohio Department of Health.
"We continue to see troubling increases in COVID-19 cases statewide," he said Wednesday.
Vanderhoff said one in 13 patients in Ohio's hospitals have COVID-19 and one in seven in intensive care units have the virus.
"This continues to be the unvaccinated who are driving these hospitalizations," he said.
The 3,303 new COVID-19 cases reported Wednesday is up from the daily average of 2,033 for the past 21 days, according to the ODH.
Of those new cases Wednesday, 119 were in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties combined.
Ohio averaged about 260 cases per day less than six weeks ago.
The state had a total of 1,168,111 COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday with 1,104,627 presumed recovered.
Mahoning County Public Health will have a vaccination clinic 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. today its its main office at 50 Westchester Drive in Austintown.
COVID-19 by the numbers
The number of cases, changes in cases and deaths in counties in the region and statewide as of Wednesday:
County Cases Change since Change since Deaths*
yesterday last week
Trumbull 17,429 +40 +272 493
Mahoning 23,440 +48 +320 616
Columbiana 9,628 +31 +223 236
Ohio 1,168,111 +3,303 +18,793 20,648
SOURCE: Ohio Department of Health
*Deaths as of Tuesday