​​COLUMBUS, Ohio — Rising demand for COVID-19 testing in Ohio means that testing centers are getting busier. 

Since early-summer, daily tests for COVID-19 have more than doubled and the rate of positive tests has risen from a daily average of 1.3% up to 8.2% this week, according to state data. 

As the pandemic begins to ramp up again in Ohio, testing providers are encouraging taking advantage of COVID-19 testing opportunities. Officials report that there’s plenty of tests, including options with fast turnaround times. 

“There's enough supplies,” Toledo-Lucas County Health Department Health Commissioner Eric Zgodzinksi said in an interview. “It's not like where we were many months ago, when tests were in short demand.”

Recently, both the number of tests and the number of positive cases have increased in Lucas County, prompting Zgodzinski to announce a mask advisory last week. 

“Understanding that COVID numbers tend to creep up pretty quick, the idea here was to get in front of it,” he said. “We need to make sure people are getting vaccinated, and wearing a mask is extremely important at this point in time.”

In Columbus, demand for COVID-19 tests is also heightened. 

At 23 Columbus Metropolitan Library locations, rapid take-home tests for COVID-19 are available at no cost.

The libraries were giving out about 100 or 200 per week this spring and into summer. Then, during the first week of August, demand increased and 700 test kits were distributed, said Ben Zenitsky, spokesperson for the library. Last week, 1,200 tests were distributed. 

The rush for tests led some locations to temporarily run out of stock, but test kits were quickly resupplied following another shipment, Zenitsky said. 

COVID-19 tests are available in Ohio through pharmacies, health departments and health care providers. 

Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said during a news conference Wednesday that testing remains a key part of the state’s effort to stop COVID-19. 

“Until far more Ohioans choose to be vaccinated, and the COVID-19 virus is no longer driving waves of hospitalization, testing will remain an important tool, and Ohio is committed to making it easy to access this testing as long as that is necessary,” Vanderhoff said. 

Through the same program that provides testing to libraries, the Ohio Department of Health is supplying schools, health departments and other community partners with the same model of at-home tests, which are produced by Abbott. The state purchased 2 million of them in January for $50 million.

When is testing recommended? Vanderhoff said anyone with symptoms should get a test. Testing is also recommended 3-5 days after exposure to someone with COVID-19. 

Unvaccinated people should get tested after high-risk activities, including travel or gathering in a crowded indoor setting, and it may be wise to get tested before certain events, he said. 

“As a precaution, people may also want to consider getting tested before they go to a wedding or large event, or before visiting a vulnerable loved one,” Vanderhoff said. 

An average of 2,685 COVID-19 cases are being reported daily in Ohio, according to Wednesday’s update, a dramatic increase since a low of 211 average daily cases on July 8. 

According to Vanderhoff, about 90% of Ohio’s COVID-19 cases were the more contagious delta variant. 

Dr. Mamle Anim, chief medical officer for Five Rivers Health Centers, said in an interview that demand for COVID-19 tests has shot upward as summer rolls on. 

“What is happening is more people are calling with concerning symptoms and we are now ordering more tests. In June and early July, there were not a lot of people calling with symptoms,” she said. 

Five Rivers, which serves 25,000 patients in the Dayton-area, offers both antigen testing and PCR tests, Anim said. It has received two federal grants to support its testing operations. 

Before vaccines were rolled out, the health centers hosted several mass pop-up testing events with the National Guard, administering thousands of tests to the general public. Anim said mass testing doesn’t appear necessary during the current surge of the virus.

“At that point, testing was the only tool we had,” she said. “Now, we're not testing for community surveillance as much as testing for symptoms, so I would rather use those resources on vaccinations than tests.”