For a long time I used that as a more reliable indicator of how things were going. Not from an absolute numbers perspective (because they have always been inflated) but from a trend perspective.
On 2/10 our total deaths were 11k then a few days later the total deaths were 16k because they were "correcting" death certificate information. Those numbers are now useless and always will be as far as I'm concerned.
In any event, we have more or less been "open" in Ohio for a very long time. For schools, it's up to the individual school districts. My kids are in Catholic school and have been in person this entire school year. The # of cases in their schools are far lower than the general population. Having schools shut at this point is absolute negligence.
Almost everyone in OH masks when inside public places (stores, restaurants, etc) and have for quite some time. People do a pretty good job with social distancing too. I'm convinced that those things do help. Over-all I'm pretty satisfied with how Governor Dewine has handled things. Not perfect but, how could it be?