8,527 cases and 60 deaths from COVID-19 were reported Wednesday, Dec. 2 by the Indiana State Dept. of Health. The single day number of cases is the most yet since the pandemic started.
A stunning 859 of those new cases reported yesterday were in St. Joseph County alone, doubling the county's previous one-day high of 445 on Nov. 13. Deputy County Health Officer Dr. Mark Fox said the dramatic increase is likely the result of a data glitch.
"It's mostly artifact of a large data dump with results spanning the month of November of rapid tests done by a network of providers that had not previously been reported," Fox said. "What looks like now is the true new cases - the cases diagnosed yesterday - are around 200, so about where we've been."
Fox says it will take several days for the health department to sort through the 600 remaining results and reassign them to the correct day.
Indiana has topped 6,000 confirmed or suspected COVID-19 deaths with the state also recording a new high for average daily coronavirus fatalities amid the ongoing infection surge. The state health department’s Thursday update added 60 more recent coronavirus deaths to the statewide toll. Those give Indiana 6,033 coronavirus-related deaths. Gov. Eric Holcomb said Wednesday the state was bracing for a possible new surge of infections following Thanksgiving gatherings in the past week but that he didn’t plan on toughening any statewide restrictions. The state’s seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 deaths has now reached 61 per day.
