Public health officials in Elkhart County are advising the community to prepare for the possibility of more illnesses and deaths as COVID-19 cases continue to balloon.
They also advised citizens to take simple precautions, like wearing masks when they go out, to ensure their safety and the safety of those around them, a report said.
Positive test results and cases have brought the county back to the red level of advisory this week, as the coronavirus spread in Indiana far beyond the records established in November 2020.
The seven-day positive test rate stood at 25.5% and was rising within Elkhart County, according to the Indiana State Department of Health dashboard. This was higher than the previous record of 24.5%, set in November 2020.
Hospitalizations and new cases within the county have risen to new records, the state reported.
These numbers could signal further trouble, according to Dr. Dan Nafziger, Goshen Health Hospital’s chief medical officer and specialist in infectious diseases.
“The general trend we’ve seen in the past is that it’s about seven days after case numbers spike that we see increases in hospitalizations, and about two maybe three weeks after that we see increases in deaths,” he said.
“So at this point, we have every reason to believe that omicron has arrived in Elkhart County and that, at least in the near term, we’re going to see more cases and more hospitalizations and more deaths.”
The hospital systems are “extremely stressed,” he added.
“We’ve had a lot of nurses and other health care workers exit their jobs in health care, and so we are already struggling in terms of staffing, and what has happened in previous surges, which we can already see starting to happen in this one, is that health care workers get sick just like everybody else,” Nafziger said. “We’re part of the community, we lead lives pretty similar to other people in the community, and this virus doesn’t care if you’re a health care worker or not.”
This Thursday, Goshen Health reported it was taking care of 29 COVID patients in the hospital, including 22 who were not vaccinated. The report also stated that they were experiencing an average of two new COVID-19 admissions every day, each positive patient being admitted to the hospital for an average of nine days.
Elkhart General also was reporting that it was beyond capacity. The hospital said that all 23 beds for the intensive care unit were filled, and all but one of the 34 beds for emergency rooms were taken. Other patients were being taken care of in hallways and other shared spaces.
“So we are anticipating some very challenging days ahead,” Nafziger said, “and if we can, only beg, plead, ask politely that people protect themselves by wearing masks when they’re in indoor public spaces, that they follow the physical-distancing rules that they’ve been hearing about for almost two years now, and that they try to protect themselves by getting vaccinated and getting boosted if they have already been vaccinated.”
Around 45% of Elkhart residents who are 5 or older are fully-vaccinated, according to state records.
