At their Nov. 15 clinic, which was held in the parking lot of Springfield High School, 752 tests were administered, according to data from the CCCHD. Of those tests, 14.8% came back positive. Charles Patterson, CCCHD health commissioner, called the clinic’s turnout, “a heck of a response.”
At the Dec. 6 clinic, held at the Clark County Fairgrounds, 411 tests were given with a 22.14% positivity rate.
As of Wednesday, Ohio’s seven-day positivity rate was around 14.1%, according to the Ohio Department of Health. That’s the lowest it’s been since Nov. 27. It was also the eight straight day the average has decreased since hitting 16.1% on Dec. 6.
The county has struggled to keep up with testing after case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths all started to surge in October. Since then, the CCCHD and ODH have held a handful of pop-up testing clinics in an effort to relieve some stress of the county’s eight individual clinics.
As of Friday, the county had no free pop-up testing clinics planned, however, the county does operate a free semi-permanent test site located inside Mercy Health Springfield’s Occupational Health building at 2501 E. High St. in Springfield.
The clinic is open on an appointment-only basis on Monday, Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m. until 2 and Tuesday from 1 p.m. until 6 p.m. To make an appointment, contact 937-717-24376.
On Friday, Patterson warned residents on Friday in his weekly coronavirus update to stay in their bubbles during the holidays to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.
“Let’s not share the virus. Let’s not give the gift that keeps on giving for many weeks, potentially into the future, especially for our more at-risk family members,” Patterson said. “We really encourage people to stay in their bubble. Everyone has their own social bubble, that bubble has gotten much smaller in COVID, and we encourage people to continue to stay in that.”
Clark County had a total of 7,973 cases, 200 deaths and four probable deaths of the coronavirus as of Friday, according to ODH.
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