COLUMBUS, Ohio — An alarming outbreak of COVID-19 cases at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center’s East Hospital is under investigation after 27 staff — including some who had received a vaccine dose — and six patients tested positive in one of the first known instances of COVID-19 spreading in an Ohio hospital despite the use of medical-grade protective equipment.

What You Need To Know

  • More than 20 staff members and six patients tested positive for COVID-19 at OSU Wexner Medical Center

  • Columbus Public Health is currently investigating the outbreak

  • The virus spread despite medical staff using medical-grade protective equipment

For months, Ohio officials have noted that there has not been a spread of COVID-19 in hospital settings in the state. During the fall COVID-19 surge, hospital staffing became strained due to infections and quarantines among staff, but officials said the transmission was occurring outside the hospitals. 

The Ohio State outbreak, reported Wednesday morning, affected a patient care unit, officials said. Staff who worked in the unit between Dec. 20 and Jan. 1 tested positive after a staff member came to work with COVID-19 symptoms, officials said, citing the results of the initial investigation of the cluster.

Six patients who had previously tested negative upon their admission to the hospital tested positive likely as a result of the outbreak, officials said.

Wexner said it is working with Columbus Public Health to “investigate and implement interventions.” 

“We take this incident very seriously. We are conducting contact tracing and testing all staff and patients who spent significant time on the unit during that timeframe,” said Dr. Andrew Thomas, Wexner’s chief clinical officer.

Thomas said hospital staff should closely monitor how they feel and said they should not come to work if they have any symptoms.

Ohio State is conducting asymptomatic testing of staff on the affected unit. For now, the outbreak is believed to be contained to that unit, officials said.

The East Hospital was among the first locations in the state to administer doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. ​Some of the infected staff had received the first dose of the vaccine in the two dose sequence, though a hospital spokesperson said to consider that "it takes time to develop any level of partial protection."

In late November, hospital officials across the state reported staffing strain as hundreds quarantined. Some hospitals postponed elective procedures or pulled staff from ambulatory sites to work shifts in hospitals. But leading medical experts in the state focused on the pandemic, along with the governor’s office, stressed there was no evidence of spread occurring inside the hospitals. 

"There have been very low rates of transmission between staff or staff/patient and most cases are determined to be community acquired. This is a rare incidence that is being fully investigated," said Wexner spokesperson Marti Leitch.

Leitch said through testing Ohio State has been looking out for a new, more contagious variant of the virus, first discovered in the U.K., but that has not been detected in any testing by Wexner.

"We are looking for the new variant in our COVID-19 testing, and we have not seen it to date," she said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated with comments from Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. (January 6, 2021)