When should you go to the emergency department versus urgent care? It all comes down to the type of symptoms you're experiencing and how serious they are. “If you attach the word severe to whatever your symptoms are, you probably should seek care at the emergency department. Basically, anything that affects ABCD: Airway, Breathing, Circulation and Disability,” explained urgent care physician Allan Capin, MD, with Cleveland Clinic Florida.

Mercy Health St. Rita's held an open house to celebrate the completion of renovation work of their west side urgent care, located at 2195 Allentown Road. The location is currently seeing patients and is open to help anyone with urgent needs that may not require a trip to the emergency room. The facility is equipped to take care of a variety of ailments to help the people of Lima.

The health commissioners of Allen, Auglaize, and Putnam Counties echoed seeing a downtick in numbers from the Thanksgiving holiday, but they believe some of that downward trend may be from people testing at home and not necessarily reporting positive cases to their local health department. St. Rita’s is currently housing 65 COVID patients, and Lima Memorial has 30. Those with the hospitals say that that’s a slight decrease in numbers, but they're nowhere near out of the woods just yet.