![]() Test results from private laboratories are sent to the state health department, Hiddleson said. “There should be little question why this data would provide tremendous value to the Delaware health district,” she said. Keller said that state health officials consider positivity rate so important that it uses it as “the sole indicator” in issuing travel advisories for states having high viral loads. The county of about 200,000 residents has reported 1,796 cases, 51 hospitalizations and 15 deaths as of Thursday. Shelia Hiddleson, Delaware County General Health District commissioner agreed: “The more data we have, the more able we are to help mitigate the disease.” Keller said she's seeking the data as one additional data point to help officials, and that it would carry no additional weight in helping measure spread. “If one were to make public policy based on the assumptions driving this resolution, it would only work if all people entering Delaware County were tested, and the town introduce heavy fines and penalties for not adhering to mask mandates.“Īfter the Delaware council amended its resolution to describe positivity rate as “one of several important factors” that would be used along with “high and accurate rate of testing” the educators sent a followup letter of support. Positivity rate might imply a “safe” community while disregarding neighboring counties whose residents could spread virus.Ī better measure of exposure risk is per-capita rate of infection, they wrote. “The seeming end goal of this resolution is to be able to falsely use a low positivity rate to declare our area COVID-free and thus we can move away from restrictions via decisions to be taken at the local level,” the letter said. Ambegaokar (neuroscience and microbiology) Kira Bailey (neuroscience, psychology) Christopher Fink (health and human kinetics) Sean Kay (politics and government) and Randolph Quaye (Black world studies/sociology of health and illness). “The major use of knowing a positivity rate is to determine if enough testing is being conducted or not, but it does not convey information about the risk of exposure,” according to the letter from professors Suren S. “We are six months in and we still don’t know because we don’t have the total number of tests given.”Ĭommissioners Gary Merrell, Jeff Benton and Barb Lewis each agreed to pass a similar resolution requesting the complete data.īut earlier in the week, instructors from Ohio Wesleyan challenged Keller’s motives. “This could mean that disease transmission is up a lot or it could mean that we are not doing enough testing for the size of our community,” Keller said. “Is disease transmission in our community getting better? We don’t know yet,” she said.ĭividing the new cases by the respective day’s overall testing shows that the positive rate of infection jumped almost twofold (4.7% to 9.1%) even though cases dropped. ![]() ![]() In a presentation to Delaware County commissioners on Thursday, Keller gave the example of new daily cases dropping from 187 to 137, but with different amounts of testing on each day (4,000 versus 1,500 tests) Providing only the number of new cases is misleading, she said, unless viewed as a percentage of total tests given, also known as positivity rate. “We’re making decisions without a full picture, and that could be harmful to our community,” Keller said. A positivity rate of 5% or below indicates that spread is declining. The state dashboard currently has this figure for the state, but does not break it out by county. Those figures would be used to determine the positivity rate for coronavirus by county. Keller and three council colleagues voted this week on a resolution requesting that the Ohio Department of Health provide the total number of COVD-19 tests for each counties’ residents. A Delaware city councilwoman is seeking more coronavirus data so, she says, local authorities can make better decisions about how and when to reopen public events.īut some Ohio Wesleyan University staff have said that Lisa Keller is seeking selective data that might minimize the threat of virus spread.
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