Update: Summit County reports 5 new coronavirus cases; 25 people have been hospitalized
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect newly available testing numbers.
Five more people in Summit County have tested positive for the new coronavirus, according to the county’s most recent update on its COVID-19 webpage. That makes for a total of 19 cases in the county so far.
To date, there have been 113 individuals tested in the county. There are currently 67 negative tests and 29 pending tests. Two of the individuals being counted as positive cases weren’t actually tested but were included in the count because they were “epidemiologically linked” to prior cases, meaning infection was highly likely due to the appearance of symptoms after coming into close contact with someone who tested positive, according to the county.
So far, 25 individuals have been hospitalized. It is unknown how many of those people have tested positive.
While the number of positive tests is clearly an underrepresentation of the presumptive spread of the virus in the county — due to a number of reasons, including a lack of tests and a backlog at state and private labs — officials are turning to other means to try to get a better understanding of its possible scope.
The county recently launched a symptom tracker, where residents can anonymously enter symptoms of respiratory illness (fever, muscle aches, cough, shortness of breath, headache, sore throat) and help provide a picture of the extent of COVID-19 in the area. More than 1,050 individuals have reported symptoms since the tracker’s launch Friday.
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