Staff Reports
GREENFIELD — Stringent new restrictions were put in place Monday to limit interactions and reduce the spread of the coronavirus, including closing restaurants and bars statewide and limiting the size of gatherings even further.
Hancock Regional Hospital, which will be the local epicenter of the medical response should one become necessary, also announced it was taking extraordinary steps to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus and put itself on a footing to help those who become ill.
Meanwhile, Indiana recorded its first death from COVID-19, as the illness caused by the virus is being called. The victim was a person in their 60s from Indianapolis who had an underlying health condition, Gov. Eric Holcomb said.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryTests have confirmed 24 COVID-19 illnesses in 13 Indiana counties as of Monday, according to the state health department.
New rules, announced Monday morning by Holcomb, included closing eateries and limiting the size of gatherings to fewer than 50 people. They had an immediate effect on restaurants in Hancock County, as anxious managers and owners moved to close their doors and reassure employees. The governor also moved to limit the size of gatherings to 50 people or fewer. That led Legacy Cinema in Greenfield, which on Saturday had said it would remain open, to announce it would close at least through Wednesday. And at least one smaller church that had planned to continue holding services acknowledged that it likely would have to stop.
Organizations with upcoming events also were moving to cancel them.
Steve Long, president and CEO of Hancock Regional Hospital, said the health care provider has changed its operations to continue providing medical care to those who need it “while focusing on what we anticipate to be a huge influx of patients” from COVID-19.
“We are in the calm before the storm,” Long said. “With providence, maybe the calm is all we’re going to get, but I kind of doubt it, so we have to be ready.”
Non-essential hospital personnel are either telecommuting or have been re-assigned to functions that need to be done that differ from what they typically do, Long continued.
Nurses are manning the hospital’s new triage phone line, 317-325-2683, and email account, [email protected].
Long said the hospital has canceled all employee vacations and official travel. It’s screening all visitors coming into the building for coronavirus symptoms and restricting visitation to one person per patient.
Volunteer service has ended for the immediate future, and staff is now performing tasks volunteers formerly did, like patient transportation.
The hospital has also started a triage clinic in Brandywine Plaza, which is in the 1500 block of State Street. Long called it a respiratory disease screening center, adding the space is an ideal setup, as it once housed an Indiana University health clinic.
Hancock Regional Hospital had yet to make a decision on Monday afternoon on ceasing elective surgeries, as many hospitals have amid the pandemic. That was also one of Holcomb’s recommendations announced Monday.
Long said the hospital’s cardiac and intensive care unit has 24 beds, but that there is room for more throughout the facility.
“We have gone through our entire facility and said where, in the worst of all worlds, could we actually have patients,” Long said. “We’ve identified spots where we can and hope we never have to do that. And at the end of the day it’s really not the space, it’s the staff that’s key.”
Most people who get COVID-19 may not even know it, but they’ll carry it and could spread it to those who are vulnerable. It’s important to reduce the overall number of people who get infected or spread that number out so that it does not exceed the health care system’s capacity, Long said.
“Imagine going to the hospital and finding out there are no ICU beds and ventilators left,” he said. “We don’t want what happened to the toilet paper to happen to the ICU beds and the ventilators.”
That’s why it’s so important to maintain practices like social distancing and staying home if you’re sick, Long continued.
“If we do everything right as a society, this I think will kind of go by and we’ll say, ‘Why did we do all that?’” Long said. “If it feels like we shouldn’t have, that means that it worked.”
Carryout and deliveries
The restrictions on restaurants and bars weren’t unexpected, as governors and mayors in other states had already moved to discourage people from congregating in public places. Many restaurants in Greenfield immediately shut down when the news of the governor’s orders came out late Monday morning and planned to shift over to takeout and delivery options, as is permitted under the new recommendations. Others remained open while waiting for an official closure deadline. Restaurants like Mozzi’s Pizza and Applebee’s still had busy dining rooms on Monday afternoon.
Suxing Wu, one of the owners of Dragon Palace Chinese restaurant in Greenfield, was turning away customers who came in at lunchtime on Monday. It seemed like the prudent thing to do, she said.
Restaurant owners reacted with anxiety and uncertainty.
“We’re living in unprecedented times. Shocking times,” said David Prudhomme, who, along with Scott LeBeau, owns the Round the Corner Grill in New Palestine.
The restaurant has around 20 employees, and the owners said they will do all they can to make sure no one loses their job during the shutdown. They were planning on allowing all employees to help with carryout orders starting today (March 17).
The owners said it will be tough not to see regular customers because their restaurant is a gathering place for many in the community.
“There are so many people who come in just to meet their friends,” Prudhomme said. “We’ve got lots of elderly clientele, so we’re a little afraid for them and are wanting to make sure they get a chance to eat.”
B&C’s Hideout in New Palestine reduced its workforce down to a skeleton crew, owner Nate Miller said.
He called off about a dozen employees on Monday, March 16, and just kept a couple of cooks and a few hostesses with the hope customers would place orders for carryout, as they normally do.
“It’s going to take all of us to help everybody get through and not just us folks in the restaurant business,” Miller said. “Everybody is on the same field we are.”
For David Baker, owner of three Montana Mike’s Steakhouse locations in central Indiana, the closure is a situation he never expected to face. As Baker closed down his restaurants’ dining rooms at midday Monday, he was uncertain what was next for him and his employees.
“We’ve never dealt with this before. It’s a first time for everybody,” Baker said.
Baker said he planned to continue offering takeout and delivery services at his restaurants, but that would still mean a major loss of income for him and for his workers, most of whom rely on tips for a major portion of their income.
“Who holds on to enough income to survive this?” Baker said. “It’s very scary. It’s scary for a lot of employees.”
Baker said he would be looking into what he could do to help his employees while the restaurants were closed, like directing them to local social services and providing free meals — but he won’t be able to afford to keep paying them.
Donna Tracy, owner of the Bluebird Restaurant in Morristown, said she understood the government’s need to take preventative measures, but was concerned about the impact the move would have on restaurants and tipped workers.
“I’m very concerned about employees, I’m very concerned about my suppliers,” Tracy said. “I don’t know what I would do in the same circumstances.”
An uncertain ending
The current pandemic is hitting Hollywood hard at the box office, and Greenfield’s Legacy Cinemas is no different.
On Monday afternoon, management announced that the theater complext would be closed through Wednesday this week.
Patrons were encouraged to check the theater’s social media feeds, website, and movieline for updates, “as we are responding to frequent changes in the entertainment industry with state/federal guidelines.”
It was a swift change for Hancock County’s only hometown movie theater, which had posted online Saturday that it was still open for business.
At the AMC Washington Square theater complex on the east side of in Indianapolis, movie tickets were still being sold online as of Monday afternoon. On Friday, AMC’s CEO emailed patrons saying the nationwide cinema chain was taking precautions by capping ticket sales at 50 percent capacity in each theater, so as to avoid crowded theaters and allow some degree of social distancing.
Worshiping in a new way
Last weekend, many churches throughout Hancock County sat empty as larger congregations opted for streaming sermons online rather than having churchgoers meet under one roof.
It was a necessary move due to state guidelines restricting groups of 250 people or more.
With state-mandated rules restricting groups even further as of Monday even more churches likely will be affected this coming weekend.
At Otterbein United Methodist Church, only 20 of the usual 30 to 35 churchgoers showed up for Sunday’s service.
Pastor Dave Wise plans to keep a watchful eye on how the ever-changing guidelines set forth by state and federal authorities will impact this weekend’s services.
“Depending on how the week goes, we’ll probably have to suspend services,” Wise said Monday.
“It’s still too early to figure out what’s going on this weekend, so we’ll have to play this by ear. This is uncharted territory for us,” he said.
Like its larger church counterparts, Otterbein has made sermons available online for parishioners who can’t make it into church.
If forced to suspend services this weekend, Wise anticipates that he and fellow church leaders will work together to contact every church member by phone, to touch base and see if anyone is in need of anything. They’ll also offer up a friendly voice and a prayer.
Holcomb, meanwhile, minced no words in describing the required response.
“To those who think we that may be overreacting, I can assure that you we are not,” Holcomb said during a news conference Monday afternoon. “Indiana is under a public health emergency. We are, no mistake about it, at war with COVID-19.”
