MOUNT VERNON – Knox Public Health outlined a community testing initiative this week that will nearly double the number of COVID-19 tests conducted in Knox County to date.
Nursing Director Lisa Dudgeon announced Wednesday that the health department will conduct community testing next Wednesday-Friday (June 3-5), and it plans to administer a total of 300 tests over that three-day period.
Through the first three months of the pandemic, just 369 specimen kits have been sent from Knox County for testing. The county has seen 23 positive cases and 332 negatives, as of Wednesday. Eight test results are pending, Dudgeon said.
Knox County Health Commissioner Julie Miller said last week that community testing would be coming in early June, as a result of expanded testing capacity locally. Knox Public Health has worked over the last three months to accumulate tests from a variety of sources. Expanded testing will allow local health officials to better determine where the virus is hidden and how prevalent it is.
“My hope… is to see what kind of more true numbers might we have,” Miller said last week. “Are we as fortunate as it appears? Or do we have hundreds with mild to no symptoms, and we just haven’t tested enough people [to find it yet]?”
The health department’s community testing initiative will be the first of its kind in Knox County – not only in terms of scale, but in terms of structure.
Testing so far has been limited to patients who meet strict criteria, set forth by the Ohio Department of Health, given the lack of resources at the state and national level. Only those deemed most at-risk have been tested.
That will not be the case next week. Knox Public Health spokeswoman Pam Palm said the health department will conduct testing on a first-come, first-serve basis. Patients will not need to show symptoms, or meet any sort of criteria, in order to be tested.
Palm said KPH chose to go this route, instead of criteria-based testing, due to concerns over the strictness of the state’s standards. Patients have had to check a number of boxes in order to be tested – including specific symptoms, medical history, age and occupation – which has cut many community members out of the equation, Palm said.
Given the opportunity to test more individuals than ever before, Palm said the health department chose to open the process up to anyone who is interested.
“There’s been a lot of concern about how the criteria was very strict – you had to be symptomatic, you had to have certain health conditions, you might have needed to be a healthcare worker,” Palm explained. “A lot of people we were hearing from in the beginning that we felt were symptomatic, but didn’t meet that specific criteria, couldn’t be tested.”
Palm also noted that, just because someone doesn’t meet specific criteria, doesn’t mean they aren’t infected. The health department’s community testing strategy will allow it to potentially identify asymptomatic carriers in the community, which could help prevent future outbreaks.
“In our efforts to mitigate the virus, it’s important to identify those who are carriers of the virus but are asymptomatic,” Palm said. “There have been several reports lately indicating that there may be more asymptomatic cases than are suspected. Even without symptoms, people can still spread the virus.”
Those wishing to participate in next week’s community testing can call the health department beginning Monday at 8 a.m. to set up an appointment (callers will receive a preliminary health screening first). Anyone 18 years or older, with transportation to the health department, is eligible to receive a test. Testing will be free to the public, Palm said.
“Due to space limitations, we can not include public transportation, such as KAT,” Palm said. “If there is an individual who is symptomatic and homebound, please contact us via the call line and we can make arrangements to get you tested.”
Those who receive a testing appointment will be instructed to pull into the health department’s parking lot at a specific time. Nurses will conduct a nasal swab test while the patient remains in the vehicle.
“We will have people out there checking,” Palm said, “and if a person’s name is not on the list, they will not be given a test.”
Some patients may meet state-issued testing criteria, Palm said. Their specimen kits can be sent to the ODH lab, which typically returns results in less than 48 hours. Knox Public Health will need to send the rest of its specimen test kits to a private lab – likely LabCorp, Palm said – where the turnaround is slightly slower, at 72 hours or less.
Knox Public Health expects to test 100 people each day, Palm said. It anticipates all 300 tests will be used.
“If there is an overwhelming request for testing and we are not able meet that need next week, we hope to acquire additional specimen collection kits and schedule additional drive-thru testing,” Palm added.
If the request for testing is not overwhelming, Palm said the health department will continue to collect specimens for testing on an individual basis at the Knox County Community Health Center. These tests would only be used on symptomatic patients, she said.
Knox Public Health feels confident it will be able to adequately contact-trace following next week’s community testing session, which will undoubtedly lead to an increase in cases. Health department nurses will do the majority of the contact tracing, Palm said, and “a good number” of volunteers have offered to help out if need be.
“We’ve been preparing for contact tracing all along,” Palm said. “We have people here in the health department who are trained for that… Between our nursing staff and additional staff members, so far we’ve been able to keep up.
“We feel good about contact tracing. And so far, 99 percent of the people we’ve dealt with have been very cooperative.”
Only diagnostic testing will be done at the health department next week, Dudgeon said. Knox Public Health currently does not have antibody testing capabilities.
There is antibody testing being done at various local medical offices, Dudgeon said, and if results for those tests come back positive, Knox Public Health will screen the patient to determine if they need a diagnostic test as well. A diagnostic test (nasal swab) would determine whether or not the patient is currently infected. Antibody testing (blood test) can only determine whether or not a patient has had the virus in the past, and thus would have antibodies to fight it.
Those who feel symptoms of COVID-19 (fever or chills; cough; shortness of breath or difficulty breathing; fatigue; muscle or body aches; headache; new loss of taste or smell; sore throat; congestion or runny nose; nausea or vomiting; or diarrhea) are encouraged to call the health department’s COVID-19 call line at 740-399-8014 (open 8 a.m.-noon on weekdays).
There, nurses can screen patients over the phone and determine if they meet the state’s criteria to be tested. Patients who meet the criteria will be able to receive a test at the Knox County Community Health Center.
