Bartholomew County health officials have expressed concern about the spread of COVID-19 in the community as the number of cases and hospitalizations continue to increase.
On Wednesday, there were 14 people hospitalized with the virus at Columbus Regional Hospital, up from four on Aug. 1, the hospital said. This past Saturday and Monday, hospitalizations at CRH had reached 17 — the highest since May 18. All patients hospitalized on Wednesday were adults.
Additionally, 10 CRH employees are currently infected with COVID-19, hospital officials said. A total of 46 CRH employees have tested positive for the virus over the course of the pandemic.
Bartholomew County Health Officer Dr. Brian Niedbalski said “we are seeing more activity of COVID-19 in our county” and is meeting “frequently” with representatives from the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. and hospital system to monitor the spread of COVID-19 in Bartholomew County and surrounding communities.
“BCSC, CRH representatives, and myself continue to monitor the status of COVID-19 in our community,” Niedbalski said. “Cases and hospitalizations continue to rise, so there is cause for concern. These numbers might hopefully improve over the next week. We are meeting frequently to determine the best course of action for schools, as COVID-19 remains a very fluid situation.”
The local increase in hospitalizations mirrors a similar rise seen across the state in recent weeks and comes as many schools in Indiana resume in-person instruction, including in Bartholomew County.
BCSC resumed in-person instruction on Monday. Flat Rock-Hawcreek School Corp. started in-person classes Aug. 4.
So far, more than 100 students in Indiana have tested positive for COVID-19 since returning to school — including two at Edinburgh High School.
One of the students tested positive on Aug. 4, while three other students and one staff member started quarantining for 14 days, and a second student tested positive on Monday, according to a message to parents from the school corporation.
St. Peter’s Lutheran School sent an email to parents on Tuesday stating a teacher is quarantining at home following school requirements after the teacher reported direct contact with someone who had a confirmed positive COVID-19 test. School officials said they could not confirm the message, as the policy there does not give public notifications about COVID-19 cases at the school.
BCSC is currently operating on a full five-day schedule, under three possible categories for virus spread: minimal/moderate spread, substantial spread and low/no spread. Some parents have opted for their children to take classes via eLearning.
In the latest round of updates on the COVID-19 indicators that BCSC is using to help assess the spread of the virus in the community and safely operate during the pandemic, two indicators — hospitalizations at CRH and per-capita test rate — crept into the red earlier this week, indicating, at least temporarily, what BCSC officials consider to be in substantial spread.
The per-capita test rate, which is calculated as a rolling seven-day average of positive tests per 100,000 residents in Bartholomew County, was 12 on Monday and 10.3 on Sunday, according to BCSC. By comparison, the per-capita test rate was 5.9 on July 20 and previously went into the red category on July 29 and July 30 before coming back down.
Hospitalizations were in the red category from Saturday through Monday, but dipped back down into the moderate spread category by the slimmest of margins on Wednesday.
BCSC considers a per-capita test rate greater than 10 and more than 14 hospitalizations at CRH to be substantial spread, according to the school corporation.
Other indicators, such as the percentage of tests taken that return positive results and the percent positive test rate trend, are still pending, but were in the green, or minimal/no spread category, as of last week.
“It has been stated and needs to be readdressed that these metrics are not the only things that BCSC will be using to make decisions about schools being open or not,” Niedbalski said. “We are monitoring situations in surrounding counties and current infections in the school system as well.”
BCSC Superintendent Jim Roberts said while he shares the same concerns as local health officials, the school corporation does not currently “view community spread as ‘substantial’” at this time.
“Obviously, we would prefer that no measure is in the red,” Roberts said. “However, we don’t view the community spread as ‘substantial’ while numbers vacillate between yellow and red, such as per capita rate and hospitalization, while others are in the green (percent positive test rate and test turnaround time). Today’s hospitalization number dropped back to yellow. Additionally, we lean on representatives from Columbus Regional Health and the Bartholomew County Health Department to help us with interpretation of the data. Our concern is closely tied to their concern.”
