EVANSVILLE — Vanderburgh County reported a one-day record of 14 coronavirus-related deaths Tuesday, according to the Indiana State Department of Health's statewide dashboard of cases.
The county has reported now a total of 171 deaths since the first one occurred on April 6. Vanderburgh also reported 104 new cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, to reach a total of 12,910 cases since the first case emerged on March 19.
Warrick County reported three new deaths to make a total of 81, while Posey and Gibson counties each reported two to make totals, respectively, of 24 and 47. Warrick County reported 21 new COVID cases Tuesday, Gibson County 12 and Posey County 10.
Warrick County has reported 4,334 total COVID-19 cases, Posey 1,590 and Gibson 2,614. Gibson County is currently in the "red" on the ISDH color-coded map, which indicates a high number of weekly cases per capita and a high testing positivity rate.
Vanderburgh County's current run of coronavirus-related deaths began on Oct. 20, when the county reported a then-one-day record of 10 deaths attributable to COVID-19. That brought the local coronavirus death toll in one day from 50 to 60.
But the county has added 111 more — 65% of the total of 171 — in the eight weeks since then.
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An IndyStar analysis found that more people died from the coronavirus in Indiana during November than in any other month since the start of the pandemic. ISDH attributed at least 1,416 deaths to coronavirus in November. The previous high of 1,014 was in April, the only other month to record more than a thousand deaths.
COVID-19 deaths in November statewide surpassed the combined total of deaths in the preceding three months.
Indiana reported 4,347 new positive coronavirus tests on Tuesday, bringing the state's total to a known 434,642 cases since the pandemic began. The state reported 129 new deaths, raising the total of COVID-19-related deaths of Hoosiers to 6,657.
Vanderburgh County's seven-day positivity rate among individuals dipped from 22.8% Monday to 22.0% on Tuesday. The number covers the period Dec. 2 to Dec. 8. The overall positivity rate among individuals ticked upward from 17.1% on Monday to 17.2%.
The all-tests number held steady at 5.6%. The seven-day all-tests number has steadily dropped by slight amounts in recent days, clocking in at 7.2% Tuesday.
A total of 75,028 individuals in Vanderburgh County have been tested for COVID-19 since March 11, with 161,480 total tests administered. The number of cases in the 20-29 age group remains the largest demographic of COVID-19 cases, with 20.1%.
The school-age demographic of children age 0-19 now accounts for 14.7% of all cases locally, higher than the state's proportion of cases in the 0-19 age bracket at 14.0%.
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Hospital officials have expressed concern with high hospitalization rates in the past several weeks as cases continue to rise. In Southwestern Indiana, where Vanderburgh and Warrick are by far are the largest counties, the state dashboard reported 43.2% of ICU beds were in use by COVID-19 patients.
The ISDH updates its online dashboard of COVID-19 data daily, including deaths, as it tracks the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
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