Most area counties start New Year in red zone on COVID-19

Bartholomew County is starting the new year nearly surrounded with counties that are in the red on the State of Indiana’s COVID-19 advisory level map.

Johnson, Brown, Jackson and Jennings counties are all still in the red advisory level tracked by the state, or showing severe spread of the disease, according to yesterday’s update. Once a county is listed as being red, it can only drop back the orange level after two consecutive weeks of lower levels of infection. But those counties are all still showing the severe spread currently.

Bartholomew, Shelby and Decatur counties remain orange on the state map, showing serious spread of the disease.

Johnson County was the only area county to report new deaths yesterday, with two. Johnson County also led the area with 96 new cases. Bartholomew had 49, Decatur 11, Jennings 3, Jackson 21, Brown 2 and Shelby County 19.

Statewide Indiana added 3,002 new positive cases in yesterday’s tally, although some of those dated back as far as November 24th. There were 54 deaths reported yesterday, going back to Dec. 5th. That brings Indiana to 8,111 deaths since the pandemic started. The statewide 7-day positive rate is at 14.7 percent, according to the state health department.