TOLEDO, Ohio — The Ohio Department of Health confirmed Monday at least 1,200 COVID-19 cases among staffers and residents of long-term care facilities statewide. The department pledged it would release detailed data on these cases Wednesday.
The ODH did release data on Wednesday, but only on nursing homes in 19 of the 88 counties in the state. In northwest Ohio, only Sandusky and Putnam counties had data released, as of 5 p.m, on the coronavirus.ohio.gov website.
A spokesperson for the health department acknowledged the incompleteness of the database and said it is not the state's fault. Each county was supposed to submit current, up-to-date numbers on cases and deaths as of Tuesday, April 21.
She added that several northwest Ohio counties didn't provide current enough data, so the agency decided not to post it to avoid confusing the public. However, a Lucas County spokesperson said its data was current and correct.
On Wednesday night, the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department released those numbers. Here is a look at the data:
According to the TLCHD, the case counts reflect current cases of COVID-19 among facility staff and residents as reported to the Ohio Department of Health. These totals do not include patients or staff who have recovered or passed away prior to this report.
Lucas County health officials said that moving forward, these numbers will be updated as indicated by ODH on the Long-Term Care Dashboard every Wednesday 2 p.m.
The state's spokesperson said the public can expect the missing counties' data to be added to the website Thursday.
You can read the full statement from the ODH below:
"Since a new reporting system for local health departments was established last week that required mandatory data from nursing homes, ODH decided that we would start capturing the data from April 15, 2020, moving forward. The listed numbers are the CURRENT patients and staff that have COVID-19 who are connected to that facility. If patients or staff had COVID-19 back in February or March and have since recovered or passed away, they are not included in the numbers that are posted. The data is being collected a new way for the first time by the local health departments so it is taking some time to learn the new reporting style and to make sure we have accurate information. If a facility is not listed that may have a case, we are verifying the correct numbers with the local health department and we will add them to the database once that conversation takes place."
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