Pickaway County Fair Responds to Health Department Allegations

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The Pickaway County Fair is one of four (others included Clinton, Harrison and Putnam) conducted after the Ohio Statehouse provided guidelines for counties wishing to host their annual fairs.

Wednesday afternoon, citing concern from reports, Governor Mike DeWine addressed county fairs again in a Coronavirus news conference.

“We came out with about three pages of what we thought were very simple orders and some protocol to be followed by the fairs” said DeWine. “What we’ve unfortunately started to see is some fairs that were not following that. Some were, some were not… We had one county fair, so far, we know of 19 cases that arose out of that county fair. We’ve also seen pictures of some fairs where people were not social distancing. We see grandstands full of people.”

DeWine added he wants to see the fairs continue, “but, they have to follow the rules. They also have to follow what their local health department says.” With DeWine’s new order Wednesday, those attending fairs after 6pm Thursday will have to wear masks.

While the Governor didn’t single out a fair in particular, the Pickaway County Fair shared the following statement on Thursday via Facebook:

The statement concludes with the Pickaway County Fair Board inviting Pickaway County Public Health, Pickaway County Commissioners and Ohio Fair Managers Association representatives to a special meeting Monday, July 27 at 7pm in Heritage Hall to discuss how the health department’s data links the fair to the increase in positive COVID-19 cases.

The PCPH posting on social media Wednesday showed 45 active cases of COVID-19 among residents of Pickaway County, with a ten day trend of 79 cases. Ten days after the fair had closed, the state issued the Ohio Public Health Advisory System grading COVID-19 related concerns for counties across the state to be updated weekly. The second week, Pickaway County was added as a Level 3 status “Public Health Emergency for very high exposure and spread, recommending residents limit activities as much as possible”. The county has remained at Level 3.