COVID-19 test site at Fairgrounds to close Friday
CANTON – The COVID-19 test site at the Stark County Fairgrounds will close at noon Friday, ending a 10-day run.
Need a COVID-19 test?: How to order free testing kits from the government
Aultman Health Foundation announced the closure on Twitter, saying that decreased demand is behind the decision. Appointments are still available from 8 a.m. to noon on Friday and can be made at bit.ly/starkcountycovidtest.
Jan. 21, at noon, the COVID testing site at the Stark County fairgrounds will close due to decreased demand. For those who still want to be tested, the site remains open today until 1:30 p.m. and will open tomorrow at 8 a.m.
Thank you to all who helped staff this testing site.— Aultman Health Foundation (@AultmanHealth) January 20, 2022
The site, staffed by about 30 members of the Ohio National Guard, opened Jan. 11 as hospitalization rates and case counts surged through Northeast Ohio and put extreme pressure on health care systems. At the same time, tests were hard to find, particularly as people returned to school and work after the mid-winter holidays.
Related: National Guard COVID-19 test site hopes to take pressure off overburdened hospitals
The Stark Fairgrounds test site was a welcome relief to hospital officials, who said it would take over some of the COVID-19 testing pressure from emergency rooms and urgent cares, where people frequently turned for COVID-19 tests, increasing the workload on systems already at capacity.
Since opening, the Stark Fairgrounds site saw more than 1,300 visitors, with a 35% positivity rate in COVID-19 test outcomes.
A spokesperson for the test site team said that initially, the demand for appointments was over 400 sign-ups a day, which has since dropped to fewer than 100.
Similar COVID-19 testing sites opened in Akron and Cleveland, though those were up and running in mid-December, weeks before Stark's startup.
But COVID-19 hospitalization rates in the region, which broke multiple pandemic-era records earlier this month, have decreased in recent days, with around a 24% drop in the last 10 days. Even still, the situation is not over, with case counts and hospitalizations still above the winter 2020 surge levels.
More: COVID-19 situation seeing improvements in northeast Ohio, but health officials still cautious
Other regions in the state, particularly to the south in Dayton and Cincinnati, are starting to see increases in their case counts and hospitalizations as the pandemic shifts.
The National Guard members who filled the testing gaps in Northeast Ohio in recent weeks are expected to be moved to areas of high need in the near future. National Guard members deployed to Stark's hospitals will remain at the hospitals for the time being.
This story will be updated as more information is made available.
Reach Sam Zern at szern@cantonrep.com or 330-580-8322. On Twitter at @sam_zern.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: National Guard-run COVID-19 site at Stark County Fairgrounds to close
