The state has taken down its list of COVID-19 cases in long term care facilities on its website, which came after an order that required those facilities to report positive cases to families within 24 hours. However, Gov. Mike DeWine says the change is only temporary.
DeWine said there’s a balance between the public’s right to know and privacy rights. There was also a problem with the long term care facilities list.
“We found that there was inconsistent information, inconsistent reporting and causing inaccurate data. We took that down," DeWine said.
DeWine said some information will be restored by Wednesday. By next week he’s hoping for death data broken down by residents and staff by county and facility.
The state had said last week it would report case data by county and facilities, but would not indicate the total number of deaths of residents or staff.
DeWine also said the site will soon list hospitals with positive tests among staff. Right now the dashboard does note the number of health care workers who have tested positive and the percentage of overall cases they represent, but does not break the data down further than that.
The state is also looking at plans to do more extensive testing in nursing homes, which will likely drive up the numbers of confirmed cases, as has happened with mass testing in three prisons.
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