Monroe County’s seven-day positivity rate dropped from 6.59 percent last week to 4.34 percent this week.
But Kathy Hewett, the lead health educator and public information officer for the Monroe County Health Department, said this doesn’t mean there’s less community spread. She said now that Indiana University students are back for fall classes, their mitigation testing could lower the county positivity rate.
“If you look at the COVID CDC data tracker, it says all of the state of Indiana is in a state of transmission, and it says our cases between 8/24 or 8/30 we had 325 cases and 48 hospital admissions,” Hewett said.
She added Monroe County’s cases per 100,000 increased this week from 128 to 220- indicating an increase in community spread.
The county is one of four counties still in a “yellow” ranking on the state’s COVID-19 dashboard. The rest are in orange or red.
