COVID-19 testing starts Friday in Put-in-Bay

PUT-IN-BAY — The Ottawa County Health Department will test up to 1,000 employees of Put-in-Bay businesses Friday and Saturday for COVID-19. The Ohio National Guard has agreed to carry out the tests, which will be done from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Put-in-Bay Fire Department. Personnel from the health department and Magruder Hospital in Port Clinton also will be helping, said Jerry Bingham, Ottawa County's health commissioner. Bingham set up the testing in response to an outbreak of COVID-19 discovered at the island last week. He said he hopes the testing will show how many employees at Put-in-Bay have COVID-19 and where they work. The health department wants to get a clear picture of the situation and isolate people who are infected so they don't pass the virus on to others, Bingham said. The Ohio National Guard is taking the samples, which will be sent to the state health department for processing. Results usually come back in 24 to 48 hours, and the agency has promised to get the results back quickly, Bingham said. The Erie County Health Department, which has carried out extensive testing, had offered to help. Bingham said the state health department then arranged to bring in the Ohio National Guard, which has been carrying out testing in prisons, nursing homes and other Ohio hotspots. The state will cover the cost of testing, Bingham said. "They found that our need was pretty important," Bingham said. On June 30, an outbreak of seven people with COVID-19 who apparently got the disease during a visit to Put-in-Bay was announced by the Ottawa County Health Department. Bingham said he does not have a firm number yet on the number of people infected in Put-in-Bay and said contact tracing is still being carried out. The state health department said as of Wednesday, Ottawa County has had 160 COVID-19 cases and 24 deaths. That's an increase of 10 cases from the 150 cases listed Tuesday. The state health department listed 228 cases and two deaths in Huron County, which has been declared a "red alert" county by the state and whose residents have been told to wear masks when they are indoors. Huron County had 223 cases as of Tuesday, so that's an increase of five cases. Erie County had 246 COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday, up four from the previous day, and has had 22 deaths, the Erie County Health Department said. Five patients were being treated for COVID-19 Wednesday at Firelands Regional Medical Center. No staff members in the Firelands Regional Health Care system are currently positive for COVID-19. By Wednesday, Ohio had 60,181 cases of COVID-19 and 2,991 deaths. The U.S. has now had more than 3 million COVID-19 cases. The U.S. had 3,029,647 confirmed cases as of Wednesday and 131,960 deaths, while the world had 11,910,220 cases and 545,980 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins tracking dashboard.