A Full House At Ohio Stadium This Fall?

A spokesperson for Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told Toledo Blade reporter Kyle Rowland that, absent restrictions from the Big Ten, Ohio Stadium should be full this upcoming season.

“Ohio has set a benchmark that we will remove COVID mitigation protocols when we drop below high case levels,” said press secretary Dan Tierney. “This will happen when our two-week case rate drops below 50 cases per 100,000 residents. We believe this is likely to happen well before the start of the football season, and the CDC has echoed that optimism in statements this week.”

Statement provided to The Blade from Dan Tierney, press secretary for Gov. Mike DeWine.

TL; DR: The governor is confident that college football stadiums in the state of Ohio will be full in 2021. pic.twitter.com/6QF4OfEwC7

— Kyle Rowland (@KyleRowland) May 7, 2021

According to WCMH, the rate is 141 cases per 100,000 as of Wednesday, May 5.

A day later, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that, “We are not out of the woods yet, but we could be very close. All of us are getting fully vaccinated, and continuing our prevention efforts can help us turn the corner on the pandemic as early as July and set us forward on a path toward a more normal lifestyle.”

More to come…

Update from Ohio State University athletic director Gene Smith:

“We’re hopefully going to have an opportunity to be at 100 percent capacity,” Smith said on May 13. “But we’re going to work with (Columbus Public Health commissioner) Dr. Mysheika Roberts locally, like we’ve always done, and see where we are when we get to August. We just have to wait and see, but that’s our goal to get to that point.”