On Wednesday, the county reported five facilities with at least one case — Allen View Healthcare Center (four residents, one staff member), Dayspring of Miami Valley (two residents), Developmental Disabilities of Clark County (one staff member), Mercy Health Oakwood Village (12 residents, six staff members) and Northwood Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation (12 residents, 12 staff members).
As of Aug. 29, Oakwood Village reported nine residents deaths and Allen View reported 3 deaths including one probable, according to data from the Clark County Combined Health District.
“We aren’t getting quite as much activity from our long-term care facilities as we were over the last three weeks,” Clark County Combined Health District Commissioner Charles Patterson said. “So that is very good news.”
Mercy Health Oakwood Village has seen the largest drop in cases over the last month. The facility identified their first case of the virus in early August and the outbreak quickly peaked on Aug. 19, with 24 employees and 28 residents testing positive for the virus in a single week.
That same week, Oakwood Village became the largest long-term facility outbreak in the county with 52 total cumulative resident and staff cases.
Prior to that, Southbrook Care Center, a long-term and post-acute care facility in Springfield, was the largest long-term care facility outbreak. The care center recorded 38 total cumulative resident cases and staff cases at its peak on Aug. 5, according to the ODH website.
Southbrook reported three resident deaths as of Aug. 29, according to data from the CCCHD.
Since Oakwood Village’s peak, the senior-living facility has seen a steady downturn in cases week-over-week. Last week, Oakwood Village reported 13 resident cases and 12 staff. On Wednesday, staff cases were cut in half to six while resident cases came in at 12.
Nannette Bently, spokesperson for Mercy Health, said previously Oakwood Village has “followed all guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Ohio Department of Health to minimize exposure to other residents and associates and have also tested every resident and associate frequently.”
With long-term care facility outbreaks slowing, the county will now likely turn its attention to Wittenberg University in Springfield, which is experiencing the opposite.
The university reported 76 active cases and 14 probable cases, as of Wednesday afternoon. That’s a significant increase from almost two weeks ago when the university had reported just one active case. According to Wittenberg’s website, the university has 1,504 full-time students.
As a result in the large jump in cases, the university announced on Monday they would be temporarily moving to remote learning through Sept. 20.
On Wednesday, the university hosted a free mass testing clinic with the help of the Ohio National Guard. The clinic offered free COVID-19 tests to any Wittenberg student, facility or staff member. Results from tests will be available within a week.
Clark County had 1,547 cases, 31 deaths and two probable deaths as of Wednesday afternoon, according to ODH.
Ohio reported 132,965 total cases and 4,324 deaths of the coronavirus on Wednesday, according to ODH. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, the state reported 973 new cases and 26 new deaths.
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