COLUMBUS — As predicted, the number of deaths now on record involving Mahoning County nursing homes shot up this week, rising from 46 a week ago to 68 Thursday — third-highest in the state behind Lucas (94) and Franklin (82) counties.

Ryan Tekac, Mahoning County health commissioner, stated recently that 70 of Mahoning County’s coronavirus deaths came from invidividuals associated with long-term care facilities.

The county officially has 138 COVID-19 deaths, and 69 percent of them are associated with long-term facilities such as nursing homes, according to the most recent Mahoning County Public Health data.

That indicates the actual number of nursing home-related deaths is 95.

Tekac said nursing home-related deaths listed on the Ohio Department of Health website the past two weeks are not an indication of a huge surge in nursing home deaths in those two weeks.

Instead, many of the deaths occurred earlier, but there is a lag between the date of death and when death certificates are filed and the deaths become part of the state’s records.

Other area counties have substantially fewer long term-care facility deaths.

Columbiana County has 15; Trumbull, 11; Geauga and Ashtabula, 16; and Stark, 41.

Meanwhile, the new data from ODH confirms what the CEO of Crandall Medical Center in Sebring predicted would happen to the data regarding his nursing home’s number of active COVID-19 cases.

Crandall has the most active cases among nursing homes in Mahoning County this week with 61, up from last week’s 53.

CEO David Mannion told The Vindicator last week that every one of the 147 patients in the rehabilitation and skilled nursing facility on the Copeland Oaks Retirement Community campus was recently tested. The facility decided to test everyone after getting its first patient case April 24, he said.

Testing every patient produces a lot of confirmed virus cases, but it also is a big step in controlling the spread of the virus, public health officials have said.

Park Vista in Youngstown likewise did a lot of testing recently and saw its number of cases rise this week — from four patients a week ago to 17 this week.

The new ODH data increases the number of Mahoning County facilities on the list — 21 this week, compared to 20 last week. The number of nursing homes in Trumbull County stayed at five. The number in Columbiana rose from two to three.

The ODH data indicates that the number of active COVID-19 nursing home patient cases in Ohio this week is higher than last week — 1,873 this week compared to 1,684 last week. The number of staff cases is also higher — 790 this week compared to 670 last week.

The ODH data was released one day later this week than intended. The ODH said it intended to release the numbers by 2 p.m. on Wednesdays, but it was delayed until late Wednesday last week and came out in the afternoon this Thursday.

Melanie Amato, Ohio Department of Health spokesperson, said the reason for this week’s delay is that the ODH had to “confirm that the data is accurate with the local health departments across the state.”

erunyan@tribtoday.com