Spurred by surging COVID-19 numbers, the Elkhart County Health Department has released a Best Prevention Practices guide aimed at helping curb the county’s increase in positive virus cases and prevent state restrictions being placed on the county.
Lydia Mertz, health officer for Elkhart County, referenced the new guide while providing a COVID-19 status update to members of the Elkhart County Health Board during their meeting Thursday evening.
“The health department this week released a best practices document. We hope this will be used by the public to guide their actions,” Mertz said of the guide. “And they need to do that until we get a widely available, effective vaccine. So, it’s not just for a month, or a week, or even just the winter. It’s going to last a long time.”
VERY HIGH RATE
According to Mertz, October has seen a shocking increase in positive COVID-19 cases throughout the county, and over a very short time period, leading county health leaders to explore additional options for reaching the public about the importance of following recommended COVID-19 safety protocols.
“In August and early September, we saw about 220-250 new cases a week. After Labor Day, we jumped to 300 – 350. But the first full week of October, we saw 531 new cases. And last week, the week of Oct. 11, we saw 746 new cases,” Mertz told the board. “On Oct. 17, just on that one day, we saw 128 new positive cases. And as of Oct. 17, we had seen 16 deaths, compared with 15 for the whole month of September. However, I think we’ve had three more deaths this week, making the total 19 deaths for October so far.”
Click here to read the full story from John Kline in The Goshen News.
Mertz noted that the state on Wednesday moved Elkhart County from a score of 2.0 to 2.5, or the high end of level orange, under its new color-coded county map system, which can be viewed through the state’s COVID-19 Dashboard at www.coronavirus.in.gov.
