Ohio has logged its highest daily number of confirmed coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, but some of that is related to a backlog of tests that the state was double checking over the last several weeks. Ohio Public Radio's Karen Kasler reports.
The Centers for Disease Control has been allowing results from less sensitive antigen tests to be included with results of PCR tests most states were using since August. Governor Mike DeWine explained the state has now added in results from a backlog of 13,000 antigen tests from the federal government, resulting in a single day record of 11,728 confirmed cases and nearly 14,000 probable ones.
“To be clear, all these backlog tests will not translate into new cases, not all of them, they'll be checked and duplicate records will be removed.”
The state will report positivity rates for PCR and antigen tests separately. Right now the seven day positivity rate moving average is 16%, putting Ohio on its own travel advisory list.
According to the daily report from the Ohio Hospital Association to the Department of Health, 657 Ohioans have been admited in the past 24 hours, 67 of them to intensive care units. Statewide one in four hospital patients have COVID-19 symptoms. Nearly one in three ICU occupants have COVID-19.
