Most of Indiana counties flipped from red to orange

A stronger image of COVID-19 in the state is painted by the Indiana Department of Health’s new county metrics.

Just 19 of the 92 counties in Indiana received an orange metric score from the IDOH last week, with the other 80 percent of the state getting a red score, the highest possible metric score that measures the pandemic’s intensity. The latest IDOH ranking, however, classifies 57 counties as orange and one county as yellow. In the red, only 34 counties remain. Monroe County remained orange as it has for the past couple of months but with the lowest positivity rate among all Hoosier counties.

On Wednesday, the IDOH announced 2,942 new cases and 62 new deaths, bringing the state’s total to 598,313 cases and 9,154 deaths. Over the past week, Indiana has seen its daily cases, daily deaths, hospitalizations and optimistic rate slowly decrease to two weeks. The state has an 11.2 percent seven-day positivity rate after providing more than 6.5 million tests.

COVID-19 hospitalizations have declined to a two-month low of 2,302, and with 27 percent of beds still open, COVID-19 patients occupy fewer than one-quarter of state ICU beds.

79,878 hoosiers have been completely vaccinated in Indiana.

The IDOH reported 35 new COVID-19 cases in Monroe County and one new death. These new numbers bring county totals to 9,222 cases and 109 deaths. Monroe County has completed almost 253,000 COVID-19 tests on 75,384 people with a 4.5 percent seven-day positivity score. Since Nov. 21, the county has not had a positivity rate this low.

85 people in the region hospitalized with COVID-19 are identified by the IDOH COVID-19 hospital census, but they occupy just 12.5 percent of ICU beds. Over 65 percent of the ICU beds available to residents of Monroe County remain free.