The Indiana State Department of Health on Tuesday morning said the number of presumptive positive cases for COVID-19 in the state has risen to 365 after the emergence of 106 more cases.
The department reported that 2,931 people have been tested, up from 1,960 people in the previous day’s report. The ISDH said the test number reflects only those tests reported to the department and the numbers should not be characterized as a comprehensive total.
The death toll in the state has risen to 12, up from seven the previous day. The department initially reported seven deaths Tuesday morning.
Marion County reported 161 cases—up 51 cases from the previous day—with three deaths.
Other area counties with cases are Hendricks (13), Johnson (18), Hamilton (25), Boone (3), Hancock (4), Madison (3), Morgan (3) and Shelby (1).
The health department is providing case updates daily at 10 a.m. based on results received through midnight.
Health officials say Indiana has far more coronavirus cases—possibly thousands more—than those indicated by the number of tests.
Cases have been confirmed in more than 45 Indiana counties so far.
As of Tuesday morning, 46,481 cases had been reported in the United States with 593 deaths, according to a running tally maintained by health researchers at Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.
More than 395,600 cases have been reported globally with 17,159 deaths. More than 102,900 people have recovered.
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to say 2,931 have been tested is to say zero have been tested
Based upon national statistics as well as international ones, the New York Times has a new comparison of death rates from CoVID-19, at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/21/upshot/coronavirus-deaths-by-country.html.
Importantly, there is a graphic comparing the experiences of states. This information will be important in evaluating whether to relax social distancing and other pressures on the economy. Look at Washington, the first state to experience the outbreak–and to take measures including social distancing. Their death rate is now less than half that of other states with large outbreaks. This is really important information for governments and businesses.
Please help to get the word out, so that parallel information for Indiana becomes available soon. (The numbers, thankfully, are low enough in Indiana that reliable measurement of death rates may not yet be possible.)
(A problem with death rates is that they lag behind infections by weeks, or maybe a month. So we won’t know things are getting better for a long time–and need to maintain discipline until we do get reliable indications. But in the absence of testing, death rates are the most reliable measure we have, and they are available for comparison across jurisdictions. Let’s hope the testing ramps up, but let’s not overlook real data as life and death choices are being made.)