Update from Lake County Health Department

By Contributing Writer on April 24, 2021

Ron Graham, Lake County’s Health Commissioner, provided the following information for LFC to pass along to our readers.

ODH-County-Positivity-Data-Update-4.23.21 Download

Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff

Monday, April 26, 2021 county test PCR positivity data will be added to dashboard at https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/dashboards/overview
Took a long time to validate data and establish a process, wanted the data to be correct.
County positivity rate data should be factored along with other factors (case number, ED visits, outpatient visits
Media availability 4/23/21 at 11am to notify this is coming on Monday.
Positivity Rates will be sent to locals on Monday around 1pm. Public posting at 2pm.

Counties will be colored by gradient based on number of tests administered. Counties with less than 20 tests per week will be very light blue.
County level map will update weekly on Mondays.
Based on previous two-week period.
Will be able to download CSV file too.

Q/A

Q: Will LHD info be able to view on the backend more often than weekly? A: No, not at this time.
Q: What is the formula used to create the data? A: Total electronic submitted positives vs. total electronic submissions.
Q: Will all testing modalities remain the same? A: Yes.
Q: How are out of county tests/out of state tests included? A: Will find answer.
Q: Are antigen/home testing being separated out/monitored? A: PCR only at county-level.
Q: Will this be different than CMS data? A: No, this is the same data.
Q: Are all reporting labs included? A: Trying to achieve this. May be a small number of outliers not reporting.
Q: Will this map also include variant positivity rate? A: No

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Comments from a reader:

PCR testing is entirely unreliable and should never be posted as legitimate data. Even Kary Mullis, the man who was awarded the Nobel Prize for creating the PCR test, said the PCR test was NEVER designed to be a diagnostic tool.