COLUMBUS (WCMH) — Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton has some good news for the citizens of Ohio during Gov. Mike DeWine’s daily COVID-19 coronavirus briefing.

Acton compared the coronavirus outbreak to forecasting a hurricane, saying we know the storm is coming, but we are preparing to minimize the impact.

“I’m saying large numbers to you and I know it’s scary, 8,000 cases a day, 10,000 cases a day,” Acton said. “Those numbers, given 11.7 million people (in Ohio), are actually not that far apart… They’re not that different.”

However, Acton added that those numbers could have been worse.

“Those numbers are helpful to our planners, but for the rest of us, what it is saying is that we are flattening the curve in Ohio,” she said. “Those numbers would have been 50 to 75 percent higher than they are right now. Our curve would have been much steeper had we not acted starting a couple of weeks ago.”

Acton added that it is the stay-at-home order and social distancing, as well as the other actions taken by the state, that is flattening that curve.

“Every action you’re taking at home is changing how hard that storm will hit and changing when and where it will hit,” Acton said. “So the actions you are taking at home are shrinking those numbers.”

Acton said the flattening of the curve directly impacts the medical capacity of beds and PPEs for the state.

“What’s important to us is every day we lock it down, every day we don’t spread the six degrees of Kevin Bacon disease, that doubling, makes all the difference for our frontline healthcare workers,” she said.