14 won't quarantine

SANDUSKY — Fourteen local residents are refusing to cooperate with quarantine rules designed to limit the spread of COVID-19, according to the Erie County Health Department. The department also is running into people who refuse to help with contact tracing efforts designed to find out who might have been exposed to COVID-19. Some, in fact, have cursed at the health department workers and refuse to answer questions, said Pete Schade, Erie County's health commissioner. The health department attempts to persuade people who are infected or who have had close contact with infected people to quarantine themselves. The department has been issuing email reports for weeks on the spread of COVID-19, but for the first time Monday, it included quarantine statistics. The department said 178 county residents currently are under quarantine or isolation, 14 residents currently are not complying with quarantine or isolation rules, and 611 people have completed their quarantines since May 1, when Erie County began carrying out Ohio's contact tracing system. Those 14 are all contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases, said Ashley Franks, Erie County's epidemiologist. Schade said he has asked the state health department to grant a variance on federal HIPAA medical privacy rules and allow him to publish the names of people disobeying quarantine instructions. "I think the public has a right to know that," Schade said. "I don't know if we will ever get that, but I put that out there." The health department has gone to the police, the sheriff and the courts to try to enforce quarantine orders, Schade said. Franks said people who don't cooperate with the health department have been "few and far between" and said most people are respectful and understanding. "Overall, I would say we've had really great compliance," she said. Case updates The health department reported a total of 523 Erie County cases Monday, an increase of 29 since Friday's update. Erie County has now had 26 deaths, with one new death since Friday. Ten people were being treated for COVID-19 Monday at Firelands Regional Medical Center. Erie County was rated as a code red county Thursday in Ohio's Public Health Advisory Alert System, indicating a rapid spread of COVID-19. Huron, Ottawa and Sandusky counties all are rated orange — not as bad as red, but worse than a yellow rating. Erie County's transmission "might be slowing a little bit," Franks said, but the county's red rating likely will persist Thursday, she said. As of Monday, Huron County had 376 cases and four deaths. Two of the deaths occurred last week, on July 27 and July 28. Huron County Public Health issued its weekly update Friday and reported it has begun investigations of four new COVID-19 outbreaks: At the Willows at Bellevue, a senior living facility; at GVM Inc. of Bellevue, which distributes tractors and other farming equipment; at Eastman Funeral Home in New London, and at Junior Explorers Child Development Center in Norwalk. Anyone who has been at these four locations should self-monitor for symptoms, the health department said. Ottawa County has had 359 cases and 25 deaths, while Sandusky County has had 332 cases and 17 deaths, the state health department said. Ohio as of Monday had 93,963 cases and 3,539 deaths. Ohio may be making progress in slowing the spread. On Monday, RT.live, which tracks the transmission rate for COVID-19, reported Ohio's transmission rate at 0.92, fourth-lowest among the 50 states. Any transmission rate below 1 is considered good; 32 states were above 1 on Monday. On Monday, the U.S. had 4,690,404 cases and 155,124 deaths. Worldwide, there were 18,149,860 cases and 690,624 deaths. The U.S. has had more deaths than any other country, followed by Brazil, with 94,104 deaths, and Mexico, with 47,746 deaths. Daily deaths in the U.S. have been rising since late June. Daily deaths had peaked at about 2,300 a day in mid-April and declined steadily for many weeks, going to about 550 on June 28. But since late June, deaths have risen to 866 on July 22, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and in some recent days have gone above 1,000. On Monday, the CDC reported 469 deaths in the U.S., a relatively low number indicating a possible lag in weekend statistics.