Hundreds of thousands of nursing home workers are not vaccinated, according to federal data, despite those facilities bearing the brunt of the early COVID-19 outbreak and their workers being among the first in the country to be eligible for shots.
The 15-member commission will be co-chaired by former state Sen. Luke Kenley and former Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Judy Monroe.
Gov. Eric Holcomb acknowledged that people were waiting up to three hours at some sites to get tested as the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations climb across the state to levels not seen since early in the year.
The state reported 25 new deaths from COVID, raising the cumulative number to 13,768. The seven-day moving average of new deaths rose from eight to nine per day, the state health department said.
The plan, as outlined by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other top authorities, calls for an extra dose eight months after people get their second shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
The Indiana Hospital Association on Tuesday said the recent surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations is putting a strain on the health care system. It said the situation could be avoided if Hoosiers would just get vaccinated.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday that the U.S. economy has been permanently changed by the COVID pandemic and it is important that the central bank adapt to those changes.
In recent days, Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines have reported that the increase in coronavirus infections has caused a slump in bookings beyond the usual slowdown that occurs near the end of each summer.
The payments will continue because the state must give recipients a 30-day notice that they will stop, which extends past the scheduled Sept. 6 end of the federal pandemic unemployment programs, the Indiana Department of Workforce Development said.
Cybersecurity company UpGuard Inc. told IBJ that it was trying to help the Indiana Department of Health by notifying it of “leaked” data and “securing the information.”
The state reported 2,726 new cases of COVID-19, the second-highest number of new cases since Jan. 23.
The data included names, addresses, email addresses, gender identification, ethnicity and race information, and dates of birth. The state said no medical information was accessed.
The Indiana Occupational Health and Safety Administration, which launched an investigation at St. Elmo after an employee’s COVID-19 death, says it did not discover any violations and has closed the investigation.
U.S. experts are expected to recommend COVID-19 vaccine boosters for all Americans, regardless of age, to ensure lasting protection against the coronavirus as the delta variant spreads across the country.
As COVID-19 surged last year, governments worldwide touted the hope of “herd immunity,” a promised land where the virus stopped spreading exponentially because enough people were protected against it. That’s now looking like a fantasy.
The state reported 1,902 new cases of COVID-19, the highest number in a Monday report since Jan. 25, when 2,210 cases were reported.
Federal health officials have been actively looking at whether extra shots for the vaccinated may be needed as early as this fall, reviewing national case numbers “almost daily” as well as the situation in other countries.
Data on the the age and demographics of victims during the delta surge is still limited, but hospitals in virus hotspots say they are clearly seeing more admissions and deaths among people under the age of 65.
The state said more than 3 million Hoosiers had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Friday at 5 a.m. More than 3 million had received the first dose of a two-dose vaccination.
The vaccination news comes as the nation continues to experience an increase in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Ninety percent of U.S. counties are now experiencing substantial or high transmission of the virus.
