Weekly Reporter Roundtable

Published December 20, 2021 at 9:07 AM EST

ICU hospital bed at the Cleveland Clinic. — Though this hospital bed in Cleveland Clinic's intensive care unit appears empty, the room is already reserved for a patient being transferred in from another location in need of life-saving care, officials said. The clinic and other Northeast Ohio hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients as the omicron variant is now accounting for half of new cases, the Clinic said in a statement Friday.

On Friday Gov. DeWine announced he will deploy 1,050 National Guard members to Ohio hospitals struggling with staffing shortages due to the latest COVID surge.

COVID cases in Ohio are as high as they have been at any point this year as we head into the holiday travel period with the omicron variant now present in the state.

Today on All Sides with Ann Fisher’s Weekly Reporter Roundtable, we take a look at the latest on COVID in Ohio as well as the top stories of 2021.

Guests:

Anna Staver, statehouse reporter for The Columbus Dispatch
Andrew J. Tobias, politics reporter for Cleveland.com
Andy Chow, reporter for the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau

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