St. Joseph County, Indiana officials held a virtual press conference Friday to talk about the county’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Some county officials say it's too early to start reopening the local ecnonomy.
Deputy Health Officer Mark Fox expects the peak in COVID-19 cases for this area to come in early to mid May. That’s later than the predicted peak for the entire state. He says this is partly due to early precautions and social distancing measures taken by St. Joseph County.
Fox says since the peak may still be weeks away, it’s too soon to start reopening local businesses.
“Even for the state as a whole, and certainly for our region, it’s too early to even begin contemplating until we get to a place where we have a decreasing number of infections over a sustained period of time," he says. "If we attempt to reopen too soon, we’ll just have this stuttering effect of opening and closing.”
Fox says there also needs to be widespread access to testing, rapid testing, therapies for people with the virus, and continued contact tracing before it may be safe to start reopening.
“I am hopeful that the governor will take into account the state as a whole and not simply the Indianapolis metro area and thinking about when is the best time to really reopen things.”
There have been some gaps in testing which the health department has started to address by opening more sites on the west side of South Bend specifically.
Fox says access to testing in the county has increased. There are about 400 COVID-19 tests being done each day.
You can find the newest data from the St. Joseph County Health Department on testing, demographics, hospitalizations, and more by clicking here.
Contact Annacaroline at acaruso@wvpe.org or follow her on Twitter at @AnnacarolineC16
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