Indiana’s COVID-19 hospitalization numbers and positivity rate continue to draw concerns from the state health commissioner. During Wednesday’s COVID-19 briefing, Dr. Kris Box said the numbers began to increase after the Fourth of July.
“We have been able to link many of these cases to holiday gatherings, graduation parties, and weddings,” Box explained. “My fear is that we will see another spike after Labor Day if people continue to ignore our guidance. If we want to get all of our kids back in the classroom and reopen all of our businesses with workers in the office, we cannot behave as if things are normal.”
As schools reopen, Box said a lot of the positive cases being seen among students are being traced back to social gatherings outside the school day. “If I would encourage parents to do anything, it would be to help your kids to identify and define their pod of friends, their bubble of friends that they’re going to hang out with and they’re going to be with socially, and that limits it,” Box added. “Rather than having their closest 100 friends at a party that they went to, maybe it’s the six or eight of them that are routinely together. So there’s still socialization, which is so important to their development and to their mental health but not necessarily with 100 or 200 with their closest friends.”
Box said the Indiana State Department of Health doesn’t currently have access to every school’s current student rosters, which can make it harder to let them know if a student tests positive. She still encourages parents to notify the school themselves.
Box said most kids who get COVID-19 will only have mild symptoms, if any. But the state has confirmed 13 cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, which involves serious illness. “All 13 of those cases, those individuals, have been discharged to home, which is great news,” she said. “Our mean age is 11, and the ages have ranged from two to 18. Thirty-eight percent of those cases were female.”
Overall, the state has had more than 76,000 COVID-19 cases. Almost 2,900 of those individuals are confirmed to have died, but over 56,000 are believed to have recovered. Dr. Box urged Hoosiers to continue to wear a mask, stay home if they’re sick, and respond to contact tracers.
