INDIANAPOLIS — Preliminary results from a scientific study aimed at measuring the spread of COVID-19 in Indiana estimates that about 1 in 10 Hoosiers have been infected with the coronavirus at some point during the pandemic.
The estimates were based on three phases of a study by the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI and the Indiana State Department of Health. The third phase was conducted in early October.
The researchers also calculated that about 1 in 384 people in Indiana with COVID-19 infections end up dying, said Nir Menachemi, lead scientist on the study and a professor at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI.
The number dramatically increases to 1 in 43 in people ages 65 years or older.
However, those figures exclude residents of nursing homes.
As of Nov. 19, an estimated 16.5% of Hoosiers ages 30 to 49 years had been infected over the course of the pandemic, as well as 10.2% of people younger than 30, 7.4% of people ages 50 to 64 years and 6.9% of Hoosiers ages 65 year or older.
If COVID-19 was allowed to spread unabated until herd immunity was achieved, an estimated 13,000 additional people in Indiana would likely die, Menachemi said. At least 5,232 Hoosiers had died from COVID-19 as of Thursday, according to the Indiana State Department of Health.
“We are very, very far away from the approximately 70% needed to achieve herd immunity without a vaccine,” Menachemi said during a press briefing on Wednesday. “…Pushing to achieve herd immunity without a vaccine simply risks losing many lives in and outside of nursing homes.”
