By Mitchell Kirk | Daily Reporter
HANCOCK COUNTY — It was the middle of March, not long before the county school districts’ spring breaks began, and families reported having to call off travel plans as cancellations and closings racked up across the country.
The World Health Organization had declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, five days after Indiana confirmed its first case — in Marion County — and Gov. Eric Holcomb announced a public health disaster emergency.
As Hancock County residents sought refunds for their plane tickets, many also flooded grocery stores like Walmart and Kroger in Greenfield and Meijer in McCordsville and Cumberland. Nursing homes were screening visitors or not allowing them at all, with some exceptions.
The county’s first known case was still another week away, but there was no question: The COVID-19 crisis had arrived.
It’s still here two months later, a span that’s left the county weakened in some ways and more resilient in others. The viral disease, which spreads through respiratory droplets and can give victims symptoms like a cough and fever, is known to have taken the lives of 22 Hancock County residents so far and infected 282. Cases accumulated slowly in the beginning and grew as the disease spread and testing capabilities expanded. The changes it forced in society progressed much the same way, and many of them lack a clear timeline for when or if they’ll revert.
The first cases
On March 12, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department reported a jail employee — a Marion County resident who was not in contact with inmates — tested positive for COVID-19. All four of Hancock County’s school districts called off classes for the following day. Greenfield-Central and Mt. Vernon went on spring break over the next two weeks while Eastern Hancock and Southern Hancock announced e-learning days for the following week ahead of their spring breaks.
Students haven’t been back in school since.
In an effort to slow the spread of the contagious disease, restaurants had to close their dining rooms and remain open only for carry-out, delivery and drive-thru after Holcomb issued an executive order on March 16. That same day, Hancock Regional Hospital opened a COVID-19 triage clinic in Brandywine Plaza to screen and test for the novel coronavirus. The hospital also set up a COVID-19 hotline for people to call in with questions about the disease.
Steve Long, president and CEO of Hancock Health and Hancock Regional Hospital, said the beginning of the pandemic taught him how quickly things can be changed — as a society, within an organization and within a state.
“We would never have imagined four months ago that anything like this would have happened,” he said.
The way the country was able to pivot in the face of the disease would have been even more difficult to imagine, he continued.
“And yet we did; there was a sense of unity at the beginning,” Long said. “Unfortunately that sense of unity appears to be splintering.”
There were still no known Hancock County residents with COVID-19 by March 18, but the Hancock County Health Department was notified that a teacher who lived outside the county and taught at Greenfield Intermediate School had tested positive for the disease. The health department and the school corporation worked to reach out to all those with whom the teacher had recently been in contact.
Around that time, Hancock County government closed offices to the public except for by appointment. Many other government and agencies’ offices were closed as well. Suddenly, video conferencing, once a tool for conducting meetings with people far away, became necessary for colleagues who used to work side by side.
On March 19, Holcomb issued an executive order closing schools through May 1, prompting Hancock County educators and students to prepare for extended e-learning. Those preparations extended even more when Holcomb on April 2 signed an order calling off school for the remainder of the academic year. On March 20, he issued an order postponing the state’s primary election from its traditional date in May to June 2.
Hancock County confirmed its first COVID-19 case on March 21. Two days later, Holcomb issued an executive order directing Hoosiers to stay home through April 6 in an effort to flatten the disease’s peak and keep the health care system from getting overwhelmed. The order also outlined exceptions, essential activities and social distancing requirements. Many businesses ended up having to close and furlough employees.
Hunkering down
Long said Hancock County’s COVID-19 cases and deaths are about half of what was expected based on population and the experience throughout the rest of central Indiana. While it remains unclear exactly why that is, he suspects it’s a combination of the county reacting quickly and its elected officials taking decisive action early.
“Everyone in the Hancock County community, everybody got on board, on the same page very early on,” he said. “I think that’s part of it.”
Craig Felty, vice president, chief nursing officer and chief operating officer of Hancock Regional Hospital, said the pandemic has reminded him how much control and influence health care providers have in a public health crisis.
“We really did make this less painful and less of a major issue than what it could have been without the actions of a lot of different people,” Felty said.
He added the partnership among the hospital, public safety agencies and local government has also helped the county through the pandemic.
“It goes on and on and on — the really collaborative effort that’s been put into this in order to get this response out there and protect as many people as we can,” he said. “I really think Hancock County has kind of blazed a trail and set a great example, not only in the state, but the rest of the nation as far as how the important stakeholders in your community can work together.”
To prepare for a possible shortage of personal protective equipment like masks and gloves, Hancock Regional Hospital and other health care providers kept a close eye on their supply. Meanwhile, non-health care companies that use the same equipment made donations from their supplies while volunteers took to sewing machines to make masks.
The Hancock County Health Department announced the county’s first death from COVID-19 after receiving the individual’s positive test result on March 24. The Indiana State Department of Health later reported that the county’s first death occurred on March 21.
Around that time, the Hancock County Jail reported dropping its inmate count to fewer than 200 for the first time in memory in order to prevent an outbreak. Law enforcement officers had begun issuing summonses to court when possible rather than incarcerating accused offenders.
Hancock Regional Hospital ended visitation, with a small number of exceptions, on March 30. During that time, the hospital also prepared for a possible COVID-19 surge expected in mid-April to mid-May by adding dozens of beds, securing more equipment and furnishing spaces with extra medical capabilities.
On April 6, Holcomb extended his executive order directing Hoosiers to stay home through April 20. By the time that date arrived, with Hancock County’s COVID-19 cases at almost 150 and the state’s at more than 12,000, he extended the stay-at-home order again, this time through May 1.
As Hancock County residents continue to test positive for COVID-19, two nurses at the county’s health department call them to carry out extensive interviews and find out with whom they have been in recent contact. Then they call those contacts to instruct them to quarantine in their homes.
Making moves
The state of Indiana announced a partnership on April 28 with OptumServe Health Services of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, to launch 50 COVID-19 testing sites over the following weeks. At that time, more than 200 Hancock County residents and more than 17,000 Hoosiers were known to have contracted the disease.
When May 1 arrived, after weeks of urging Indiana residents to go out as little as possible, Holcomb announced a five-stage plan for relaxing stay-at-home directives and reopening the economy while continuing to respond to the disease. That same day, Hancock County’s COVID-19 death toll rose to 10.
“The big question mark about this is what is this disease going to act like?” Long said.
Will it be like influenza, something without a comprehensive cure that becomes part of the environment? Or will it be more like polio, for which someone can get a vaccine and avoid the disease?
“We don’t know the answer to that question and that answer is really important to know how to react as a society,” Long said. That question, he added, likely won’t have an answer for a year.
Felty agreed.
“This isn’t over,” he said. “This is going to be an animal that we’re going to be faced with for a long time.”
While society is starting to open back up again, Felty emphasized it can’t be an about-face to the way life was in February. He urged people to remain vigilant.
“We cannot go back to the way we’ve done things,” he said. “We have to be careful.”
That means social distancing, wearing masks and maintaining proper hygiene, he added.
In early May, the Hancock County Health Department for the first time released COVID-19 data on the eight long-term care facilities in the county, revealing they had accounted for 11 deaths and 52 cases as of May 11. Greenfield Healthcare Center had 50 of those cases and 10 of those deaths while Woodland Terrace of New Palestine had two cases and one death.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported since the pandemic began that people age 65 and older and those with underlying health conditions are more at risk of serious illnesses like COVID-19.
On May 15, Hancock County’s COVID-19 deaths rose to 22. A total of 14 of the fatalities were people 80 and older. None of the county’s victims have been younger than the 50-59 age group the county and state health departments use for their reporting.
The pandemic has resulted in deaths, illnesses, layoffs and economic loss along with the cancellations and postponements of events. But it has also spurred acts of kindness. Volunteers have provided meals. Public displays of support have been organized outside the hospital, and there have been floods of donations.
Long said the pandemic’s human component is what’s stood out to him most of all throughout the past two months.
“It’s a lot of data and we’re always looking at the numbers and trying to figure out exactly what we should do, but at the end of the day, it’s individual people taking care of other individual people,” he said. “And that’s really what it’s all about… There’s a genuine love of caring about each other. I don’t know if it’s culture, or tradition, or heritage, or geography, or demography, but there’s a genuine level of caring about each other that is special in this county.”
