State reports 142 new deaths from COVID-19

Indiana health officials are reporting 142 new deaths from COVID-19 in Tuesday’s numbers from the Indiana State Department of Health.

That is a record number for a single day’s report, However those deaths date back from Oct. 27th to Monday. The high number is in part due to reporting delays over Thanksgiving.

The state also reported 5,518 new COVID-19 cases and a 7-day positivity rate of 11 percent.

Johnson County led area counties with four deaths from the disease reported. Jennings and Decatur counties each reported one new death.

Bartholomew County had 69 new cases to report, with a 7-day positivity rate of 10.7 percent. Decatur had 7 new cases, Jennings 17, Jackson 58, Brown 8, Johnson 134 and Shelby 45.

Bartholomew and all of its surrounding counties remain orange on the state’s color coded metric map, meaning serious spread of the disease.

• Indiana will stay in a state of emergency until the end of the year. Governor Holcomb’s office announced yesterday that the public health emergency was being extended through at least December 31st. It was first issued on March 6th when the Hoosier state saw its first confirmed case of COVID-19. The order has since been extended nine times, leaving Indiana in a public health emergency for 270 days.