HANCOCK COUNTY — Another Hancock County resident was added to Indiana’s COVID-19 death toll over the weekend, and the state extended its stay-home order while allowing for some medical procedures to resume.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed the revised executive order he announced last week requiring Hoosiers to stay home and follow other pandemic-related rules through May 1. (You can read the updated order here.) On Monday, April 20, Indiana officials also discussed changes that will result in an increase to the state’s COVID-19 death numbers and reveal more data on cases in long-term care facilities. Updated demographic data shows that Hancock County’s cases continue to head in the same directions.
The Hancock County COVID-19 death that the Indiana State Department of Health reported Sunday raised the county’s total to seven. According to updated demographic data released by the Hancock County Health Department Monday, the person who died was a woman between the ages of 70 and 79.
The state added 19 positive cases to Hancock County’s total over the weekend, bringing the total to 151. Almost 160 more tests processed for county residents brought that total to 1,104.
Holcomb’s revised executive order allows for medical procedures restricted by a past executive order to be re-evaluated for possible recommencement starting on Monday, April 27. Restrictions on medical procedures will also be re-evaluated every seven days, according to the order.
Holcomb said during his regular briefing on Monday afternoon that many of those considerations will be based on the amount of medical supplies available in the state.
He added the success of social distancing has allowed for the possibility of recommencing certain medical procedures that have been restricted in an effort to conserve personal protective equipment for health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis.
“That has made a significant difference in where we find ourselves today,” Holcomb said.
Holcomb also said the state will continue taking a “safety-first posture” in the weeks and months ahead while relying on data and balancing the risks and rewards of every decision.
In anticipation of the change, Craig Felty, vice president, chief nursing officer and chief operating officer of Hancock Regional Hospital, said a team at the hospital has been working for the past couple weeks on how health care will start to make its return amid the pandemic.
“We’re going to be determining this week likely what services we’re going to be opening back up and how fast we’re going to be opening back up,” Felty said.
It’s important to do it safely and carefully, he continued.
“People have been going without some care for a while, some of the more elective procedures and testing,” Felty said. “We definitely want to get those patients in as soon as we can. We definitely don’t want things to progress to where anybody starts having bad outcomes from having to wait for these elective items.”
Hancock County’s COVID-19 demographic trends continued after adding 33 cases between April 13 and 20. Those age 50 to 59 continue to make up the biggest 10-year group, at 21.85%, although the 40-49 group is close behind at 21.19%. The 50-to-59 group also makes up the biggest category of cases in the state. Those 60 and older, a group health professionals say is more at risk to serious illnesses like COVID-19, make up more than 30% of Hancock County’s cases.
All of the county’s COVID-19 deaths remain 70 and older, while that group accounts for 18.5 percent of recorded cases.
Felty called it a disease that affects all ages, but some more than others.
“Most of the illnesses are fairly mild and some of them are not even showing any symptoms,” he said. “And the older you get, unfortunately the worse off you have the possibility of being.”
Gender demographics for the county’s COVID-19 cases also remained nearly half and half on April 20, with slightly more female cases. The state’s split is 54.4% female, 44.3% male and 1.3% unknown.
Hancock County’s gender demographics for COVID-19 deaths stand at four males and three females. State deaths amount to almost 57% male, almost 41% female and just more than 2% unknown. Felty said it will be interesting to learn after the pandemic why more males are dying from the disease while it appears to show up in both genders more evenly.
He also said the hospital has four positive COVID-19 patients as of Monday, two of whom in critical condition on ventilators and two in stable condition. No hospital patients were awaiting results on COVID-19 tests as of Monday morning, he added.
Dr. Kristina Box, Indiana state health commissioner, said during the news conference Monday that later this week the state will start including presumptive positive COVID-19 cases in its death total. That means a physician listed COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death in a patient, but there was no documented test for them, she said.
“This will cause our death numbers to show an increase that’s higher than what we’ve typically seen,” Box said, “but I want to make sure that everyone understands that these are not new deaths. Rather, we are capturing the deaths that have occurred really since this pandemic began and are now available to us…”
Box also referred to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ recent issue of notice for an upcoming rule change requiring long-term care facilities to notify residents and their representatives of confirmed COVID-19 infections or onset of respiratory illnesses among residents and staff. Facilities will still be required to follow privacy laws, she added.
More than 100 of Indiana’s COVID-19 deaths have been residents of long-term care facilities, Box continued. She added the state is working on a plan to provide weekly updates on long-term care facilities’ COVID-19 data.
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COVID-19 data as of April 19
Hancock County
- 151 positive cases
- 7 deaths
- 1,104 tests
Indiana
- 11,686 positive cases
- 569 deaths
- 64,639 tests
- 505 new positive cases between April 16 and April 19
- 7 new deaths between April 15 and April 19
- 3,585 new tests between April 2 and April 19
- 47.5% available ICU beds
- 23.4% ICU bends in use – COVID
- 29.1% ICU beds in use – non-COVID
- 2,863 – total ICU capacity
- 77.6% available ventilators
- 11.4% ventilators in use – COVID
- 11% ventilators in use – non-COVID
- 3,104 – total ventilator capacity
U.S.
- Positive cases: 720,630
- Deaths: 37,202
Sources: Indiana State Department of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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COVID-19 demographic data
Hancock County
Positive cases
Age
- 80+: 11.26%
- 70-79: 7.28%
- 60-69: 11.92%
- 50-59: 21.85%
- 40-49: 21.19%
- 30-39: 16.56%
- 20-29: 9.27%
- 0-19: 0.66%
Gender
- Female: 50.99%
- Male: 49.01%
Deaths (7)
Age
- 80+: 5
- 70-79: 2
Gender
- Female: 3
- Male: 4
Indiana
Positive cases
Age
- 0-19: 1.9%
- 20-29: 10.8%
- 30-39: 13.9%
- 40-49: 17.1%
- 50-59: 19.6%
- 60-69: 16.1%
- 70-79: 10.3%
- 80+: 10.2%
- Unknown: 0.1%
Gender
- Female: 54.4%
- Male: 44.3%
- Unknown: 1.3%
Deaths
- 0-19: 0%
- 20-29: 0.2%
- 30-39: 0.9%
- 40-49: 2.6%
- 50-59: 6.9%
- 60-69: 20.7%
- 70-79: 28.3%
- 80+: 40.4%
Gender
- Female: 40.9%
- Male: 56.9%
- Unknown: 2.1%
Sources: Hancock County Health Department, Indiana State Department of Health
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