Ohio health official estimates 100,000 people in state have coronavirus

A top health official estimates 100,000 people in one US state could have coronavirus, despite the official national figure at just 1663 cases.

A health official estimates a whopping 100,000 people in Ohio have coronavirus.

Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton made the announcement at a press conference.

She said she estimated at least one per cent of the population in the state has the virus.

“We know now, just the fact of community spread, says that at least one per cent, at the very least, one per cent of our population is carrying this virus in Ohio today,” Acton said.

“We have 11.7 million people. So the math is over 100,000. So that just gives you a sense of how this virus spreads and is spreading quickly.”

To put that into perspective, currently the whole of the US has 1663 cases.

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Health officials estimate Ohio has 100,000 cases.

Ms Acton said the slow rollout of testing meant they did not have a good grasp on numbers.

“Our delay in being able to test has delayed our understanding of the spread of this,” she said.

Officials are taking major steps to try and slow the spread of the virus, closing schools for three weeks and banning public gathering of more than 100 people.

There are just five confirmed cases so far but Ms Acton said it appeared the number doubles every six days.

“We’re all sort of waking up to our new reality,” she said.

“This will be the thing this generation remembers.”

The Trump administration has come under fire for the slow rollout of tests.

President Donald Trump yesterday announced that travel from Europe to the US will be suspended.

“To keep new cases from entering our shores we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days,” he said.

Homeland Security officials later clarified that the restrictions would apply only to travellers who have been in the 26-nation Schengen area of Europe within the last two weeks.

These areas include Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The travel restrictions will kick in at midnight on Friday.