Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indiana State Department of Health on Saturday said the number of positive cases of COVID-19 in the state has risen to 27,280 following the emergence of 625 more cases.
That’s the highest number of new cases in the daily health department update since May 8, when 643 were reported.
The state reported 602 new cases on Friday, 580 on Thursday, 346 on Wednesday, 500 on Tuesday, 501 on Monday and 394 on Sunday.
The department said Saturday that the cumulative death toll in the state rose to 1,596, up from 1,550 the previous day—an increase of 46. That’s the highest number of new deaths contained in the daily update since May 6, when 51 were reported.
More than 91% of the total deaths involve those who are age 60 or older. Almost 75% of those who have died are older than 70. Men account for 51.3% of the deaths.
The state reported that 171,358 people have been tested so far, up from 165,448 in Friday’s report—an increase of 5,910. New tests have exceeded 5,000 in five of the last seven daily reports.
The ISDH said the test numbers reflect only those tests reported to the department and the numbers should not be characterized as a comprehensive total.
Health officials say Indiana has far more coronavirus cases—possibly thousands more—than those indicated by the number of official tests. A study announced Wednesday estimated at least 186,000 Hoosiers have or had COVID-19 through the end of April.
New positive cases, deaths and tests have occurred over a range of dates but were reported to the department in the previous day.
The department reported the state’s first case on March 6 and first death from COVID-19 on March 16.
Marion County on Saturday reported 8,151 cumulative cases—up from 7,995 the previous day, an increase of 156 cases.
The county’s cumulative death toll rose to 474, up from 465 in Friday’s report.
The state said 39,963 people have been tested in the county.
As for surrounding counties, Hamilton had 1,001 positive cases; Johnson 980; Hendricks 1,020; Boone 256; Hancock 287; Madison 538; Morgan 241; and Shelby 280.
Pike County has five cases, but every other Indiana county has at least seven.
The department said 39.6% of the state’s intensive care unit beds were still available. About 15.3% are being used by COVID-19 patients.
The department also said 80.7% of the state’s ventilators were available, with 6.6% being used for COVID-19 patients.
The health department is providing case updates daily at noon based on results received through 11:59 p.m. the previous day.
As of Saturday morning, nearly 1.45 million cases had been reported in the United States, with 87,697 deaths, according to a running tally maintained by health researchers at Johns Hopkins University & Medicine. More than 250,700 people have recovered.
More than 4.57 million cases have been reported globally, with 308,843 deaths. More than 1.65 million people have recovered.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
Where are all the “it’s just the flu” commentators?
Right here Ed. You hide in you house and have food delivered for the next 5 years. As for me – I will get on with living … or dying. Don.
I would actually like to see similar data for influenza posted on the site for comparison. However, from https://www.in.gov/isdh/files/Weekly%20Influenza%20Report-Week%2019-2019-2020.pdf we can see that there were 129 influenza associated deaths this season (Oct 5-present; 9 months). We’ve had 1550 COVID associated deaths, over 10x the amount of influenza deaths, just since the beginning of March (2.5 months). Influenza is decreasing in activity, COVID seems to have reached a steady-state with ongoing ~45 deaths per day. Most of those people die alone, separated from their loved ones. Many in an ICU, which is a miserable place to be if you’re a patient. COVID is a serious ongoing disease. Reasonable steps to get people back to work should be attempted. Otherwise people should stay at home as much as possible while exercising outdoors with social distancing.
Actually the deaths started occurring March 16. So that total is exactly 2 months’ worth.
WRTV reported that nursing homes in Indiana make up 12% of the positive cases statewide but represent 41% of the deaths. What does that tell us?