ASHLAND — While five positive cases of COVID-19 have been correctly identified in Ashland County, three times additional cases have been incorrectly assigned to Ashland and reported on the Ohio Department of Health’s COVID-19 Dashboard.
In each instance, the discrepancies were a result of outdated addresses, according to Ashland County Health Department Public Information Officer Jill Hartson in an April 21 email.
“Upon realizing an outdated address was used, Ashland County Health Department’s public health nurse removes the positive case from Ashland’s queue,” Hartson said. “The case is then reassigned to the correct jurisdiction based on the individual’s current address.
“The Ohio Department of Health’s website is updated daily at 2 p.m. and doesn’t always capture the reassignment of a positive case until the following day’s update, which leads to the discrepancy.”
Because of the confusion this causes locally, the health department wants the public to know it’s notifying media partners of all positive COVID-19 in Ashland County via an official press releases after the case has been confirmed. These media partners include: Ashland Source, The Ashland Times Gazette, Ashland County Pictures, WMFD and iHeartMedia Ashland-Mansfield.
To view the most recent report on Ashland Source, visit our Community Bulletin, which includes the updated local COVID-19 case count and other relevant news.
As of mid-afternoon Tuesday, April 21, Ashland County has five positive COVID-19 cases. The last of these was reported on Friday, April 10.
On March 27, the first discrepancy appeared. Less than two hours after the Ashland County Health Department alerted the public of its second confirmed positive case of coronavirus (COVID-19) within the county, the Ohio Department of Health updated its COVID-19 dashboard to reflect three cases in Ashland County.
The news of Ashland County’s second case broke at 12:30 p.m. Friday in a Facebook live press conference with Hartson, Ashland’s Mayor Matt Miller and the County Commissioners. Headlines at Ashland Source and other local news outlets relayed the message immediately afterwards. Then, in the 2 p.m. update from the state’s department of health, it appeared Ashland County instead had three cases. This wasn’t the case, Hartson confirmed later that day.
“Originally, we were notified this morning that we had two new confirmed cases, but further investigation revealed an old, incorrect address was used for one of the confirmed cases,” Hartson said. “We worked with ODH (Ohio Department of Health) to officially transfer the case to the correct jurisdiction.
“A glitch in the system caused the case to be identified incorrectly as an Ashland County case. The information should be accurately reflected after the next update to the ODH website.”
Sure enough, the next day, the case count on the state’s COVID-19 dashboard dropped back to two.
On April 15, Hartson addressed another discrepancy.
“The information on the ODH website is not accurate. Ashland County remains at five positive COVID-19 cases. Earlier today, the Ashland County Health Department had been notified of a sixth case, but further investigation revealed an old, incorrect address was used for the individual,” Hartson said via email. “The sixth case has been removed from the Ashland County queue and placed in the correct jurisdiction. The information should be accurately reflected after the next update to the ODH website.”
Again, five cases were appropriately reflected in the next update.
Nearby Richland and Knox Counties have seen similar discrepancies. In Richland County, officials determined a zip code error had been made and a case initially reported in Richland was actually outside of the county. Richland Public Health announced the change locally, but it was not as quickly rectified at the state level.
In Knox County, local reports once showed a higher number of cases than the state, which Knox County Health Commissioner Julie Miller addressed. When the Knox County Health Department reported two cases, the Ohio Department of Health reported one.
“We’ve had a delay,” Julie Miller said in a late March interview with Knox Pages. “There’s a state database that keeps all of the suspected and confirmed cases, and there’s been a delay in getting information into that state database. We are working hard with the places who had tested our two confirmed cases, to make sure they get the information in there.”
Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton has acknowledged these discrepancies, too.
“Often you’re hearing things in the media at a local level before things are confirmed in our state system, so I just want to acknowledge that,” Acton said in daily press briefing Monday, March 23. “Even my statistics I give you are shot in time, they’re not what’s happening hour-to-hour.”
