Elkhart County

Elkhart County’s extended face mask order went into effect Tuesday. On Monday, the Elkhart County Commissioners voted to rescind their enforcement of the mandate as it applies to businesses.

The Commissioners put an ordinance into effect late last year that originally included a monetary fine system for businesses that violated the health department’s COVID-19 orders.

The Elkhart Co. Health Officer has extended the county's face mask mandate through May 14th. 

Several Elkhart County institutions are pooling their data to improve child wellbeing and safety in the county.

The Elkhart County Child Dashboard will use data from local nonprofits, healthcare systems, schools and government agencies to track factors that could affect different aspects of child wellbeing. 

Rebecca Shetler Fast, director of Elkhart County’s youth mental health network, The Source, and the lead on the project, says that kind of cross-sector collaboration isn't common.

Leaders from Elkhart, St. Joseph, Marshall and Kosciusko counties came together on Tuesday to oppose state legislation they say would divert money from public schools.

Representatives from over 20 local school districts attended a collaborative event hosted by Strong Public Schools For Strong Communities, where local mayors, business leaders, chamber officials and community members took turns reading from a four-county declaration to Indiana legislators and Governor Eric Holcomb.

The Elkhart Co. Health Dept. has announced that a confirmed case of the U.K. variant of COVID-19 has been detected in the county. 

Elkhart County Health Officer Dr. Bethany Wait said a more contagious variant makes indoor gatherings among unvaccinated people – even small gatherings, with masking and distancing – more dangerous.

As of March 9, Elkhart County has officially dropped any fines for violations of public health orders related to COVID-19. County health officials say while the county’s COVID-19 situation is improving, residents can’t let their guard down yet.

Elkhart County Health Officer Dr. Bethany Wait said the county’s numbers are “looking pretty good” – she said hospitals are full, but with non-COVID patients, and new coronavirus hospitalizations remain low.

Elkhart County renters who have suffered financially from the COVID-19 pandemic are now eligible for emergency assistance through the county's new emergency rental assistance program. 

Elkhart County Commissioners today voted to drop the potential for fines for non-compliance with the county's face mask health order.

Businesses that violate the county’s COVID-19 health orders will now only be issued a verbal warning for a first offense, followed by a written warning for further offenses. 

As the consolidation of the Elkhart County courts moves closer to reality, county officials held the first of several “visioning sessions” to discuss what the facility might look like.

County judges and magistrates, as well as the prosecutor and Sheriff’s offices, gave input on what the 32-acre campus between Elkhart and Goshen should ultimately look like. 

Big changes are depicted from the previous week with the latest release of the Indiana Dept. of Health's COVID-19 county-by-county map. 

Only five Hoosier counties are in red, the lowest number in that designation since November. Two counties in the WVPE listening area are in yellow. Elkhart and Marshall counties both now have the most improved designation in our area. 

Indianapolis-based design firm Performance Services has been chosen to build the consolidated Elkhart County Courts facility. The County Commissioners approved the partnership at their biweekly meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 19.

Last week, the county’s Technical Review Committee interviewed project teams and ranked them using factors like local participation and courthouse facility experience. Out of three finalists, Performance Services scored the highest.

The consolidation of the Elkhart County Courts is moving closer to reality, with three teams under consideration for the project’s final design and build.

The county’s Technical Review Committee interviewed the three teams on Jan. 12 and assigned each proposal a qualitative score. Those scores were based on factors like local participation, courthouse facility experience, and schedule management.

The Indiana State Dept. of Health has updated its county-by-county COVID-19 map and it shows that Elkhart, LaGrange and Pulaski counties are in red. The red designation is the most serious on the map. A total of two dozen Hoosier counties are in the red as of now. 

For a third straight week, more than a quarter of Indiana counties are rated with the highest risk level of coronavirus spread in Wednesday’s state update that continued to show no area in the low or moderate community spread zones. The Indiana State Health Department tracking map labels 24 of the state’s 92 counties the most dangerous red category, down two from a week ago. All other counties are in the next-riskiest orange rating of the four-level system. The new county ratings come a day after state officials announced a flaw in Indiana’s COVID-19 reporting that is expected to change the state’s overall positivity rate and the metrics for individual counties once corrected.

On Dec. 23, Elkhart County Commissioner Suzie Weirick will host a fourth “Candid Covid Conversation,” a series of online discussions with Elkhart County healthcare workers on the front lines of the pandemic. This week’s conversation will address the county’s Spanish-speaking community. 

Weirick said the conversation will be conducted almost entirely in Spanish, with a panel of bilingual nurses to answer questions and translators for any English-speaking panelists.

Today the Elkhart County Health Department issued an update on the county's COVID-19 status. 

Three Elkhart County cities have committed to enforcing the county’s COVID-19 protocols. The mayors of Elkhart, Goshen and Nappanee will each bring an ordinance to their city councils next week.

The ordinances will recognize and support the county health department’s COVID-19 orders, which limit gathering sizes and mandate face masks, among other things. They will also support the County Commissioners’ ordinance that establishes fines for violating those health orders.

The Elkhart County Board of Commissioners has passed an ordinance that allows fines for entities that repeatedly violate the health department’s COVID-19 order.

The fines will be the second step in the enforcement procedure laid out in the ordinance. The first step is a warning, followed by an education effort.

Then, fines can be issued per violation – not posting signs that announce a face-covering requirement, for example, means a $50 fine, while failing to maintain social distancing will cost $250.

In the wake of promising vaccine trials and still-surging COVID-19 cases, the phrase “herd immunity” has entered the popular vocabulary. 

It refers to the idea that if enough people in a community are exposed to a virus, it will eventually die out. It’s a real phenomenon, but it’s not possible without some sort of intervention.

Elkhart County Health Officer Lydia Mertz said it would take over five years to achieve herd immunity in Elkhart County without a vaccine – and that’s with every resource in every hospital dedicated to caring for coronavirus patients.