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Ohio headed toward "slippery slope" as COVID-19 cases continue to rise

3News speaks with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Cleveland Clinic Pediatric Emergency Department medical director on how to slow the spread.

CLEVELAND — Election Day broke records but on the same day, the state of Ohio is breaking records for Coronavirus cases.

Gov. DeWine told 3News' Russ Mitchell that he'll be addressing just that on Thursday and Friday later this week.

RELATED: Gov. Mike DeWine addresses Ohio's high COVID-19 numbers, Election Day with 3News' Russ Mitchell

"What we're trying to do, frankly, is get people to understand the gravity of what we're seeing here," DeWine said, noting that the state has seen a significant rise in new daily cases and positivity rate over the past month. "The spread is in every single county. In the rural counties as well as the urban counties. We're looking at other things that we can do and we'll be talking about that on Thursday and Friday."

DeWine, however, noted that instituting new policies could be a complicated matter. While he noted that the virus is spreading virtually everywhere, the governor said that it's predominantly spreading at personal gatherings among friends and family.

3 News spoke to Dr. Purva Grover, medical director of the Cleveland Clinic Pediatric Emergency Department about the uptick in cases. She says we need to continue following guidelines to stop the virus.

"Where we are going from here is a slippery slope really, with the holidays coming up with the winter coming, things are going to get more treacherous if we don't change the way we are doing things,” said Dr. Purva.

Dr. Purva says it comes down to what we've been talking about for months: masks, social distancing and hand-washing. While hospital cases are up, she says the health systems are better prepared now than in the spring.

"We rose to the occasion and we did wonderful with that but we have a much more sophisticated way of doing things, practicing, testing, treating and monitoring."

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