Almost 11 percent of Hoosiers are now believed to have had COVID-19 at some point, whether they knew it or not. That’s according to the latest findings from the IU Fairbanks School of Public Health’s ongoing study into COVID-19’s prevalence.
Principal investigator Dr. Nir Menachemi shared the preliminary results of the study’s third phase, during state officials’ COVID-19 press conference Wednesday. “We believe the population prevalence was 10.6 percent in Indiana [as of November 20],” he explained, “with worrisome increases, especially in the oldest, most vulnerable age groups.”
He stressed that that number of reported cases is just a fraction of the actual number of infections, and those who never officially test positive are believed to be responsible for a lot of the spread.
That figure also means the state is still a long way off from the 70 percent needed for herd immunity. “If the virus continued to spread until 70 percent eventually got infected prior to a vaccine, an additional 13,000 Hoosiers – and that doesn’t include the Hoosiers currently in nursing homes – would lose their lives,” Menachemi said. “Comparatively, that’s many times more deaths than has already occurred in Indiana. Pushing to achieve herd immunity without a vaccine simply risks losing many lives in and outside of nursing homes.”
The study continues to use random sample testing but also incorporates data from historic positive tests. Menachemi said that researches have also been able to use the death rates by age group calculated earlier in the study, to do the reverse: estimate the number of infections by looking at the number COVID-19 deaths and how old they were.
The study shows that, overall, one person out of every 384 infected – or about a quarter of one percent – will die from COVID-19. But the fatality rate varies greatly when broken down by age: less than 0.005 percent for those under 30 but over 2.3 percent for those 65 and up. Those figures don’t include those living in long-term care facilities.
“Also, we now know and we have evidence to suggest that an increase in infections among younger Hoosiers quickly translates into more infections and thus more deaths among older Hoosiers,” Menachemi added. “This is exactly what is occurring right now, to explain the increased reported deaths and the strains on our hospitals.”
Health officials say that means extra precautions should be taken to protect older Hoosiers.
