As he has done each week for the past month, Gov. Eric Holcomb threw down another gauntlet this week in the state’s continuing campaign to tamp down the infection rate from the coronavirus pandemic.
This edict is the toughest one, and it’s important for all of us to pay close attention to it.
In a nutshell: Hoosiers should continue to stay home, and if they’re not, they should have a good reason to be circulating in public. And businesses must adhere to new guidelines designed to enforce distancing or face possible sanctions.
The governor’s new executive order, issued on Monday, revises one he issued on March 23. It extends the stay-home order to April 20 and offers more clarity on which businesses are considered “essential.” But the new rules go a step further: Those businesses — mostly retail outlets — that provide “necessities of life” face three new criteria. They should limit the number of customers in their stores at any one time; they should limit their hours of operation and consider separate hours for seniors and other vulnerable people; and they must comply with social distancing and sanitation measures to protect their own employees and the public.
Everyone else must offer online or call-in ordering and delivery or curbside pickup.
And to put teeth into the order? The governor has created an Enforcement Response Team, to be organized by the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission — the excise police — to investigate bad actors. Violators could be shut down and subjected to prosecution for failure to comply. He also clarified that entities will be subject to sanction by the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Agency.
Clearly, social distancing measures taken so far are working. Although cases statewide and in Hancock County continue to mount alarmingly, many of them — in Hancock County, anyway — are not requiring hospitalization. Hancock Regional Hospital this week put the finishing touches on its surge plan if the worst-case scenario develops, but Steve Long, its CEO, thinks we have avoided the exponential growth in infections that have overwhelmed health care systems elsewhere.
So far.
State health officials tell us the worst of the pandemic could land as early as this coming week. The window extends into May. That’s why Holcomb and his state health commissioner, Dr. Kristina Box, continue to sound grave warnings. Holcomb wondered aloud at one of his briefings this week why in the world people continue to risk spreading infection. That’s one reason he decided to close campgrounds this week. State parks, which are still open, might not be far behind. The new rules are designed to blunt the cavalier attitude some people still have about this crisis.
“It’s time to hunker down,” Holcomb said.
If we’re going to reverse the spread of the virus, we have no choice.
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