Ohio is now making COVID-19 test positivity data available on the county level with state health officials saying this will help give a clearer picture on the potential spread of the virus in specific communities.
Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, Ohio Department of Health chief medical officer, says the state will be rolling out an online tool, starting Monday, that allows people see the COVID-19 positivity in different neighborhoods of their county.
Local lab information has been required to be reported since last year but Vanderhoff said it took a while to get to the point where they could create this tool.
"To have a large enough number of labs onboarded, in place, and now actively reporting the information for us to reliably activate and use that," says Vanderhoff.
He says the county positivity rate will not be factored into the state color-coded advisory system.
