Ohio to Ramp Up COVID-19 Testing in Nursing Homes, State Developmental Centers

Photo courtesy The Ohio Channel Facebook Live

Speaking at his coronavirus news conference Tuesday, Governor Mike DeWine announced a new plan and effort with testing in Ohio’s nursing homes and developmental centers.

The Governor cited the large number of COVID-19 deaths have occurred in nursing homes and has enlisted the service of the Ohio National Guard to assist in testing the homes statewide. The Congregate Care Unified Response Team will start testing this week in nursing homes.

DeWine said the clinically, medically driven effort will begin with all nursing home staff to be tested first. Resident testing will be based on assessments by the medical teams starting with those who have a COVID history. As to how many of state’s nursing homes can be tested this week is unknown, but it’s expected reports will be given in the days ahead. There are nearly 1,000 nursing homes in Ohio.

The Governor also says the Response Team hopes to have testing completed at all eight of Ohio’s Developmental Centers completed this week.

Statewide as of 2pm ET Tuesday May 26th, Ohio has 33,006 total COVID-19 cases with 5,579 hospitalizations and 2,002 deaths due to the virus.