COLUMBUS, Ind. — Bartholomew County has reached another heartbreaking milestone during the pandemic: 100 deaths from COVID-19.
On Thursday, Bartholomew County became the 22nd county in Indiana to eclipse 100 deaths since the pandemic took hold, according to figures released Friday by the Indiana State Department of Health.
Deaths from COVID-19 in Bartholomew County have accelerated over the holidays, with 36 reported since Thanksgiving and 14 during the first 21 days of January.
Overall, roughly 1 in 838 people in Bartholomew County have died from the virus over the past 10 months. The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the county was reported March 15, with the first death reported April 3.
By comparison, a total of 183 Bartholomew County residents died from influenza or pneumonia during a 15-year period from 2003 to 2017, according to the latest figures available from the Indiana State Department of Health.
“It’s a milestone we hoped we would never reach,” said Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop. “But unfortunately, we’ve gotten there and we know that we’ve going to have a ways to go. We will work as hard as we can to get folks vaccinated and get to the end of this pandemic. But we all need to understand that that’s going to take some time.”
Lienhoop said he hopes the tragic milestone is “encouragement to mask up and maintain our physical distance from others and be smart about crowds.”
The news of the 100th death came amid the slower-than-anticipated roll out of the vaccine, with about 5.4% of the state’s population and 5.2% of the county’s population receiving their initial shots, according to ISDH.
It also came as state health officials reported 64 new cases of COVID-19 in Bartholomew County on Thursday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the county to 6,443.
Initially, the Trump administration had promised to vaccinate 20 million people in the U.S. by the end of last year. As of Friday morning, 17.5 million had been vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Local officials have said they have capacity to vaccinate more people, but state health officials have told them that they cannot increase local allotments until they receive more doses of the vaccine from the federal government.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, estimated this week that between 70% and 85% of the U.S. population will need to be vaccinated to achieve “herd immunity,” a goal he said could be achieved by the start of next fall.
That means about 4.71 million to 5.72 million people in Indiana would need to get vaccinated, including 58,645 to 71,212 people in Bartholomew County — each requiring two doses.
Currently, anyone in Indiana age 70 and up is eligible to get vaccinated against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
People ages 70 and up are more susceptible to severe illness and death from COVID-19. Despite making up just 13% of confirmed cases, that age group represents 75% of deaths in Bartholomew County, according to ISDH.
Fifteen percent of deaths in Bartholomew County were people ages 60 to 69, 7% were residents ages 50 to 59, 2% ages 40 to 49 and 1% ages 30 to 39, according to state figures.
Kelsey DeClue, spokeswoman for Columbus Regional Health and the local COVID-19 Community Taskforce, said the milestone is “devastating” and “speaks to the continued seriousness of this virus.”
“It’s goes without saying that’s milestone you never want to hit,” DeClue said. “It’s devastating as us as a community because this has been a long year and there have been a lot of hits we’ve all taken. With every new death, it certainly doesn’t get easier. It gets harder, if anything. It affects all of us as a community.”
“These are not numbers that we should become numb to,” she said.
