Gov. Eric Holcomb discusses the state’s COVID-19 response from Indianapolis on Thursday afternoon. Screencapture
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana is “heading in the right direction” at the moment with COVID-19, Gov. Eric Holcomb said.
With that in mind, Holcomb said he is extending his current emergency orders for just one additional week as he and his staff considers whether it’s time to change up state and local rules and restrictions regarding the pandemic.
“We’re starting to see reason for optimism as we look across the State of Indiana and see that positivity rate tick down,” Holcomb said. “We’re heading in the right direction.”
The state has seen case numbers drop, hospitalizations are consistently coming down and deaths have dropped. Those are all signs of progress, but Holcomb noted that Indiana isn’t clear at this time.
Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box reported that positivity has dropped from nearly 16% in recent weeks to around 10% this week. The hospital census is down by more than 1,000 since a Nov. 30 peak and daily admissions to hospitals have come down. Statewide county metric ratings also improved from more than 70 counties in the worst rating, red, to just 34 this week.
“We hope these downward trends continue but I want to caution Hoosiers not to let their guard down,” Box said.
Because of the improvement, Holcomb said his executive order about the pandemic will be extended just one week as he reconsiders what the state needs right now.
Holcomb didn’t tip his hand to what, if anything he is considering ahead of next week, but that he was encouraged by the recent progress. That being said, Hoosiers shouldn’t likely expect a full repeal of all restrictions.
“We’re still losing people,” Holcomb said. “We want to make sure we do this in a very responsible, data-driven way.”
The majority of the rest of Thursday’s statewide press conference was devoted to updates about vaccine efforts across Indiana, a topic that has dominated most weekly updates since December.
It’s too early for the state to attribute improvements in COVID-19 rates to vaccines — not enough people have received them yet to make a large impact yet — but widespread vaccination is the route to overcoming the pandemic sooner than later, Holcomb said.
The state’s ability to vaccinate is currently bottlenecked by the incoming supply of vaccines but Holcomb has touted how well Indiana has set up the infrastructure to get vaccines out as quickly as possible, with at least one clinic in every one of the state’s 92 counties.
“I’m really pleased that our very methodical kind of underpromise/overdeliver approach, making sure that we’re not overpromising, that expectations are aligned with results that are actually occurring,” Holcomb said. “The faster immunization, the slower the spread, we’ll bring down deaths, we’ll bring down hospitalization rates.”
Indiana State Department of Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lindsay Weaver reported that the state has received approximately 736,000 vaccines in total and has already given about 450,000 first and second doses to date. With the other 286,000 vaccines currently available, the state has about 270,000 appointments scheduled.
The state continues to acknowledge the uphill battle it is facing with some people over concerns about the safety of the vaccine.
Box noted that there have been some reports from Norway of some patients who had died after receiving a vaccine and that investigation is ongoing as to whether the deaths are attributable to some reaction to the vaccine or unrelated.
In Indiana, three people have died after receiving the vaccine but Box noted that all three patients had serious underlying health issues before receiving the vaccine and that it currently does not appear that the shot was played a role in leading to that death.
Those incidents have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adverse effects registry, which is a clearinghouse for health providers to report negative outcomes so regulators can continually monitor and investigate to see if there are any emerging concerns or common links among people who do have reactions in order to tweak advisories on who should or shouldn’t take the vaccine and possible side effects.
Box instead pointed to the numbers that the state has given hundreds of thousands of doses so far with a very small amount of serious complications.
“We have given more than 360,000 vaccines with very few severe or adverse outcomes,” Box said. “That speaks volume to the safety of these vaccines.”
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