All WVPE listener counties have maintained their color status from last week on Indiana’s COVID-19 tracking map, except for one.
Most remain in the “orange” category, which indicates high spread of the virus. LaGrange County was in the “yellow” category last week, indicating moderate spread, but it joined the orange counties this week.
The only listener county not in the orange is Fulton County, which maintained its “red” status from last week. The red category is the most serious on the state map, and indicates unchecked spread of the virus.
Fulton County’s 7-day test positivity rate is now nearing 20 percent.
Porter County, in the northwest corner of the state, is the only Hoosier county still in the yellow. That’s almost a 95 percent decrease from a month ago, when 19 counties were still yellow.
Hospitalizations in Healthcare District 2 – which covers most of the WVPE listening area – continue to rise. They’re now higher than the previous peak in May, though not nearly as high as the fall peak in November.
Only 11 percent of ICU beds in the district are available, with the majority occupied by non-COVID patients. Nearly 25 percent of area ICU beds were available at this time last week.
The surge in cases across the state has been driven by the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant – it currently makes up 97 percent of cases sampled by the Indiana Department of Health –and underwhelming levels of vaccination.
According to the state vaccine dashboard, 54.2 percent of eligible Hoosies are fully vaccinated. That’s 0.6 percentage points more than last week, but vaccination rates still vary widely by zip code.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, every Indiana county has “high” community spread of the virus, meaning both vaccinated and unvaccinated Hoosiers should wear masks indoors.
WVPE’s three Michigan counties – Berrien, Cass and St. Joseph – also currently have “high” community spread.
Contact Gemma at gdicarlo@wvpe.org or follow her on Twitter at @gemma_dicarlo.
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