State and local health officials issued dire warnings about the pandemic Friday, as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations pushed intensive care units in large swaths of Indiana to their limits and forced some hospitals to cancel elective procedures.
During a press briefing Friday, Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box said the state has entered what she described as “the darkest time in the pandemic” — and it is going to get much worse in the coming weeks.
“We are fully expecting and preparing that things are going to get much worse with our hospitalizations here in the next four weeks,” said Dr. Lindsay Weaver, chief medical officer at the Indiana State Department of Health.
Bartholomew County Health Officer Dr. Brian Niedbalski issued a statement Friday, pleading with local residents to get vaccinated, wear masks, keep their distance from people they don’t live with and practice good hygiene.
Those measures, Niedbalski said, “are our best defense against a repeat of what we witnessed with COVID in late 2020.”
“Our numbers are quickly approaching that level, unfortunately,” Niedbalski said in the statement.
The surge in cases and hospitalizations across Indiana is being driven by the unvaccinated, state health officials said Friday.
Last week, nearly 1,300 people in Indiana were admitted to a hospital for COVID-19, state health officials said. All but seven of them were unvaccinated. Additionally, 205 Hoosiers were admitted to an ICU last week due to COVID-19. All but one of them were unvaccinated.
At least 115 unvaccinated Hoosiers died from COVID-19 last week.
The unvaccinated make up more than 85% of hospitalizations nationwide, Niedbalski said.
“Numbers don’t lie,” Niedbalski said in the statement.
The warnings came as hospitalizations in Indiana have gone off the rails in recent weeks, erasing months of progress after the winter surge. More than 20,000 Hoosiers have tested positive for COVID-19 so far this week.
As of Thursday, 2,108 Hoosiers were hospitalized with COVID-19, up from 390 on July 4, according to the Indiana State Department of health. The number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 in Indiana also has risen, state health officials said.
COVID-19 hospitalizations at Columbus Regional Health remained high this week, with 34 people hospitalized on Thursday, the hospital said. There were 25 people hospitalized for COVID-19 mid-afternoon Friday, including seven people listed in critical condition.
This week, at least three people in their 30s, two in their 20s and one person in their late teens were hospitalized at CRH with COVID-19 infections.
Niedbalski said it is “particularly concerning” that “cases involving children and adolescents are occurring at rates not seen with previous variants.”
“The overall rise in cases and hospitalizations is once again greatly impacting our health care systems, including regional children’s hospitals,” Niedbalski said.
Box, for her part, didn’t hide her disappointment with the unvaccinated on Friday.
“It’s incredibly disappointing to have effective tools such as the COVID-19 vaccine, and still have nearly half of our eligible population refuse to get it,” she said.
