A Low Bob’s Discount Tobacco store in South Bend informs customers to wear masks, a move required by a St. Joseph County Department of Health order to slow transmission of the coronavirus. South Bend Tribune Photo/MICHAEL CATERINA
SOUTH BEND — Coronavirus cases have begun to tick back up in St. Joseph County since Indiana allowed businesses to start reopening May 4, a county health official said Friday.
“Stage 2” of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s “Back on Track Indiana” plan called for manufacturers of non-essential goods to resume production and for retail stores to open back up at 50% capacity. The county’s rolling seven-day average of new daily cases had fallen from about 29 on April 20 to 14 on May 4, but had increased back up to 20 by Thursday.
More testing has become available locally since Stage 2 began, and that’s intended to identify more cases, but testing availability hasn’t grown enough to account for all of the increase in positive cases, said Dr. Mark Fox, the county’s deputy health officer.
“The proportion of people testing positive has stayed about the same, and there has been a modest increase in capacity but frankly not a dramatic increase,” Fox said. “Based on that, it does appear that there is a real increase in cases and likely it’s attributable to ... caution fatigue or general increased public interaction and commercial activity.”
South Bend Mayor James Mueller had criticized Holcomb’s plan when it was unveiled May 1.
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