Indiana reported a state record of 8,514 confirmed new COVID-19 cases and Monroe County eclipsed 6,000 total cases Thursday.
Monroe County reported 134 new cases Thursday, bringing the total to 6,048 cases.
The state of Indiana has only reported more than 8,000 cases in a day twice including Thursday. Thursday’s total beats the previous record of 8,283 cases set Nov. 13. Daily new cases had been declining in Indiana since the state moved back from Stage 5 of its reopening. However, the daily totals have been increasing since Thanksgiving, including today’s record one week after the holiday.
Cases in Monroe County have soared since mid-to-late October. After only recording more than 100 cases in a day three times since the beginning of the pandemic until Nov. 10, Monroe County has had nine days of more than 100 new cases since. In late October, Monroe County was averaging fewer than 30 cases a day, and now averages nearly 90.
On Nov. 20, Monroe County set a record for the daily average new cases with 114, beating a previous high of 94 on Sept. 14. Today's 134 new cases is the fifth highest total since the start of the pandemic. The 238 cases recorded on Sept. 10 remains the overall county record for the most cases in a single day.
And on Oct. 13, Monroe County moved past 3,000 total cases since the start of the pandemic. In fewer than two months, that total has doubled.
Recently, Monroe County moved into orange status according to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard. That rating considers the weekly positivity rate and new cases per 100,000 residents. Orange correlates to 10-14.9% weekly positivity rate or 100 to 199 new cases per 100,000 residents.
Orange is the state’s second worst rating for a county. The ratings update weekly. Monroe County was one of the last counties to move from the yellow to orange rating, and only one county in Indiana — Switzerland County — is not scored as either orange, or the worse, red rating.
Hospitalizations continue to rapidly increase as well, with 45.2% of the state’s intensive care unit beds now in use for COVID-19 patients and 3,362 people currently hospitalized. There are 155 people currently hospitalized for COVID-19 in Monroe County.
