COLUMBUS, Ohio — With cases still on the rise in Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine announced that antigen test kits are headed to the state.
The governor said Abbot BinaxNOW COVID-19 antigen screening tests will be used at colleges and universities to help with proactive screening plans. Antigen tests detect whether a person currently has the virus.
Next week, thousands of tests will be sent to nursing homes for routine and outbreak testing.
DeWine said that PCR tests are considered the gold standard and provide the most accurate results, but these antigen test will still help the state take a step forward.
"The opportunity to test more broadly and more often make this an important step forward in our fight against COVID-19 spread, even with the lower sensitivity and specificity of these tests," said DeWine. "We do have protocols to follow up on results that are most likely to be false, but we need to be aware that this is part of testing at this scale."
DeWine also said that just because you may test negative for the virus, it doesn't mean you shouldn't wear a mask and stop social distancing.
RELATED: 'It's going to get worse before it gets better,' DeWine says as numbers continue to spike in Ohio
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Click here for a page with resources including a COVID-19 overview from the CDC, details on cases in Ohio, a timeline of Governor Mike DeWine's orders since the outbreak, coronavirus' impact on Northeast Ohio, and link to more information from the Ohio Department of Health, the Cuyahoga County Board of Health, the CDC and the WHO.
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The CDC and the Ohio Department of Health are now recommending the use of cloth face coverings in public to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Read more about the CDC's recommendation here. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to make a face maskfrom common household materials, without having to know how to sew.
View a global coronavirus tracker with data from Johns Hopkins University.
