A congregate living facility is defined as a shared housing location that includes a broad range of settings, such as apartments, condominiums, student or faculty housing, national and state park housing, transitional housing and domestic and abuse shelter, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last week, roughly 12 people were hospitalized for COVID-19, Patterson said, which isn’t quite a high for the county but above the average amount of hospitalizations Clark County has been seeing on a regular basis.
“Normally we have much fewer than that. Three or four usually,” Patterson said.
One of those outbreaks is at Mercy Health Oakwood Village, a senior living facility in Springfield. On Wednesday, the outbreak became the largest long-term care facility outbreak in the county - past or current.
As of Wednesday, the facility had 23 residents and 20 staff members currently infected with the virus, bringing the total to 43 current cases.
Prior to the release of long-term care facility numbers by the Ohio Department of Health on Wednesday afternoon, Southbrook Care Center, another senior living facility in Springfield, was the largest COVID-19 long-term care outbreak in the county.
At its peak in June, the facility had 29 residents and 9 staff members test positive for the virus.
As of Wednesday, the county had an 8% hospitalization rate, or percentage of those infected with the virus that currently hospitalized, and 107 cumulative hospitalizations, according to data from the CCCHD.
However, between Aug. 12 and Aug. 18, ICU bed occupancy in Clark County was over 80% every day but once, according to the Ohio Department of Health’s website.
On Aug. 18, ICU bed occupancy peaked at 85.60%, with 5.40% of cases being COVID-19 related, according to the ODH.
“Our hospitals are filing up,” Patterson said.
Patterson the best way to keep those numbers down to get “everyone on the same page.”
“The idea would be that, to do what we to do, we have to get everyone going in the same direction,” Patterson said. “It sounds silly but if you have gone in the world at all, half of the people are wearing masks and the other half aren’t. Apparently, not everything is going in the same direction.”
Clark County had 1,312 cases, 17 deaths and two probable deaths of the coronavirus as of Friday afternoon, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Champaign County had 227 cases and two deaths.
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