HANCOCK COUNTY — COVID-19 infections have been creeping upward in the county, rising to daily highs last week not seen since February following the virus’s post-holiday surge.
An expert with Hancock Health who has followed the pandemic closely called it short-lived and likely due to school spring breaks along with mutations of the virus. The best way to beat that trend, he said, is for everyone who can get vaccinated to do so.
With one exception, Hancock County’s daily case counts had been in the teens and single digits since mid-February before starting to slope upward earlier this month. The county tallied 26 cases on both April 13 and 14, the highest daily case count since early February. They’ve bounced between the low 20s to the single digits ever since.
Indiana saw a similar trend and reported more than 2,300 cases on April 16, the most since Feb. 5 and about double what it had been reporting per day over the preceding weeks.
Craig Felty, vice president, chief operations officer and chief nursing officer for Hancock Regional Hospital, said the spikes are likely due to schools being out recently for spring break. Hancock County schools had their breaks in late March and early April.
“Last week, we had a little bit of another surge that was pretty short-lived,” Felty said. “Personally, I think it probably had to do with spring break; that’s a possibility. And we do know that the other (COVID-19) variants are in Indiana, and that might’ve also been part of the reason. But we are vaccinating people every single day, and we’re definitely getting our numbers up to where we want them to be.”
The latest weekly COVID-19 figures for Indiana schools, for April 10 to 16, reported 10 new student cases at Greenfield Intermediate School and fewer than five new student cases at nine other schools in the county, along with fewer than five new teacher cases at two schools and fewer than five new staff cases at one school.
State health department chief medical officer Dr. Lindsay Weaver last week also noted the impact COVID-19’s mutations are having on recorded infections and encouraged Hoosiers to get a vaccine.
“We are seeing an increase in our cases; we’re watching closely for an increase in hospitalizations,” Weaver told The Associated Press. “We know that the variants are here in Indiana and across the entire country, so please go ahead and get vaccinated.”
Felty said he doesn’t think Gov. Eric Holcomb’s recent changing of a statewide mask mandate to an advisory has contributed much to the spike.
“A lot of businesses, at least I’ve gone in, are continuing to mandate masks,” he said. “I think hopefully that hasn’t had that big of an effect, but it definitely could’ve had a little bit of an effect on it.”
Hancock Regional Hospital’s number of COVID-19 patients rose last week to about five for a few days before returning to an average of between one and three a day, Felty continued. On Tuesday, there were two. During the post-holiday surge, the hospital was treating upwards of 20 patients at once.
Felty echoed Weaver’s vaccination plea.
“We have had multiple millions of people in the U.S. that have been vaccinated and with very, very few unknown bad side effects or bad outcomes,” he said. “The vaccine is safe. I know we’re in kind of a little hiccup right now with J&J, but I anticipate the J&J vaccine will be released again probably within the next few days, and we will begin giving that again.”
The state and nation put a pause on administering Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine last week while federal health agencies investigate unusual blood clots in six out of almost 7 million U.S. recipients of it.
COVID-19 deaths in Hancock County continue to remain low recently. The county has reported four since late March after reporting them frequently between November and early March. The state’s daily COVID-19 death counts have mostly been in the single digits for weeks.
Felty thinks that’s a sign that the vaccines are working, and that the state’s approach to get the elderly and those with underlying health conditions vaccinated first was effective.
“The vaccine has proven, all in all, to be very safe; it’s proven to be very effective; and that is what is going to end this pandemic,” Felty said.
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COVID-19 data through early Wednesday, April 21
Hancock County
- 398 new tests administered (Feb. 11-April 20)
- 23 new cases (April 20)
- 7.1% seven-day (April 8-14) positivity rate all tests, 9.5% cumulative rate
- 0 new deaths (April 20)
- 98,849 total tests administered
- 41,609 total individuals tested
- 8,014 total cases
- 13.7% seven-day (April 8-14) positivity rate unique individuals, 19.3% cumulative rate
- 139 total deaths
- Advisory level: yellow (second least severe)
- 24,485 fully vaccinated (39.4% of population 16+)
- 32,442 first vaccine doses administered in two-dose series (52.2% of population 16+)
Indiana
- 38,052 new tests administered (April 10-20), 5,945 new individuals tested
- 1,116 new cases (April 20)
- 5.1% seven-day (April 8-14) positivity rate all tests, 9% cumulative rate
- 14 new deaths (April 11-20)
- 9,516,161 total tests administered
- 3,343,166 total individuals tested
- 710,607 total cases
- 13.6% seven-day (April 8-14) positivity rate, 21.3% cumulative rate
- 12,840 total deaths
- 408 total probable deaths
- 61.5% ICU beds in use – non-COVID
- 9% ICU beds in use – COVID
- 29.5% ICU beds available
- 18.8% ventilators in use – non-COVID
- 2.7% ventilators in use – COVID
- 78.4% ventilators available
- Hospital census: 836 total COVID-19 patients (639 confirmed, 197 under investigation)
- 1,622,455 fully vaccinated (29.9% of population 16+)
- 2,212,174 first vaccine doses administered in two-dose series (40.5% of population 16+)
Source: Indiana State Department of Health
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