Ohio Test Site Finds More Than Half Positive for COVID

Akron Beacon Journal

The positivity rate for three days of drive-thru COVID-19 testing at Summa Health's corporate office in Akron last week was a staggering 54%.

Over three days of testing offered last week, 2,300 people were tested, with 54% testing positive, Summit County Health Commissioner Donna Skoda said. That means about 1,242 people tested positive in three days alone.

Summit County's overall positivity rate is currently 22.6%, up from 18.8% last week, according to Summit County Public Health data. Ohio's seven-day moving average positivity rate is 30.8%, according to Ohio Department of Health data.

Near the beginning of the pandemic, the World Health Organization recommended the positivity rate should be 5% or lower for at least 14 days before governments considered reopening.

In the last two weeks of December, Summit County began seeing daily case counts above 1,000, with 1,413 reported by Jan. 2 alone, according to Summit County Public Health data. For comparison, the number on Dec. 2 was 484.

"Our cases are soaring...It has been exponentially increasing," Skoda said. "Omicron has proven to be everything they thought it would be: fast sweeping, very contagious, causing a great deal of hospitalizations."

Testing has been extremely challenging to find during the omicron wave of the pandemic. Skoda said last week, the health department distributed 7,000 at-home test kits in three hours.

The drive-thru testing site is operated by Summit County Public Health, the Ohio National Guard, Akron Children's Hospital, Cleveland Clinic Akron General and Summa Health. It was open Dec. 28-30 and resumed operations Sunday, Jan. 2, with testing available seven days a week.

Summit County Public Health said the site will remain operational indefinitely, depending on community need.

Summit County and Ohio's hospitals also continue to see record numbers of COVID-19 patients. Skoda said about 93% of those in the county's hospitals for COVID-19 are unvaccinated.

Summit County's four hospital systems — Summa, Akron General, Western Reserve Hospital and Akron Children's Hospital — first reported a record number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 on a single day during the pandemic on Dec. 29, at 328. The previous record was 318 on Dec. 15, 2020.

The number has continued to increase, reaching 358 on Dec. 30 and 377 on Tuesday, Jan. 3.