09-03-2025
Looking back: 5 years since the pandemic began
(WKBN) — It's been five years since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Ohio, and First News is looking back at the pandemic with a local county health official.
According to the Ohio Health Department, the first positive case of COVID-19 was reported on March 9, 2020, but Laura Fauss with Columbiana County Health District says the state health department started meetings in January.
'Once we saw it leave China with how mobile our society is, it's not really that surprising, but because we had such limited knowledge on the virus, we really didn't know what was going to happen,' Fauss said.
Health departments relied on proven ways to stop the spread of any diseases — washing hands, covering a cough with an elbow and maintaining distance from others.
Just a week after the first case in Ohio, closures and stay-at-home orders started to roll out. Fauss says while it was surprising to many, it was always a possibility.
'We had done a preparedness drill similar to this related to the flu. So, that's something that's always on our minds — it's always a possibility whether it really occurs. We all went through this, we all know it felt like a movie. It didn't feel like reality. So, it really occurring is surprising,' Fauss said.
The first case in Columbiana County was recorded March 20, 2020, and the first vaccine wasn't available until December 2020. Fauss said that was challenging but there were positives.
'Working in local public health in Columbiana County — one of the things I really want to get out to the community is their dedication and hard work. They did their part in stopping the spread of the disease and, in turn, saved lives,' Fauss said.
Now, five years later, she says waste water monitoring in larger cities and telemedicine for rural areas are positives that came out of the pandemic, but the healthcare workforce took a big hit that is still present.
'In Ohio, I can speak specifically to the public health workforce all over the state that there's still staffing shortages,' Fauss.
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