COLUMBUS – A spike in new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 as the state cleared a backlog of tests results has pushed the total number of cases in Ohio during the nine months of the pandemic to over a half million.
The Ohio Department of Health cleared up a delay in tabulating antigen test results that dated back to Nov. 1, causing a one-day surge of 25,721 cases, bringing the total number of Ohioans who have contracted the disease since March to 510,018.
At the onset of the pandemic, only polymearase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which measure RNA, were available, but as antigen tests were developed in the spring, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance that allowed for a positive antigen test – which detects antibodies in the blood, indicating that a patient had had COVID-19 in the past — to be counted as a probable case, ODH Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said.
The CDC changed its definition of cases to allow a positive antigen test to be counted as a probable case if additional criteria, including exposure to a known case of COVID-19 or symptoms of the disease, were met.
State labs trying to perform the tests and tabulate the data were swamped due to a surge in cases in the last few weeks, resulting in a backlog of about 13,000 test results.
All cases, whether confirmed or probable, from a PCR or antigen test, will go through the same investigation and interview process from now on, allowing the department to count probable cases from antigen tests more quickly and give a more accurate picture of the spread of COVID-19 in the tate, Vanderhoff said.
Not all pending cases will be translated into new cases since duplicate records will be removed, he said.
The addition of approximately 100 hospital admissions from the backlogged antigen reports also contributed to Tuesday’s reported hospitalization admissions of 657.
The rate of positive test results over the past seven days is 16%.
The number of new cases per day in the U.S. have eclipsed 200,000 on average for the first time, with the crisis all but certain to get worse because of the fallout from Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. Deaths from COVID-19 have soared to more than 2,200 a day on average, matching the frightening peak reached last April.
A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel is widely expected to authorize emergency use of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine Thursday, and shots could begin almost immediately after that. Over 90,000 are expected to arrive in Ohio Dec. 15.