With late Thursday’s update from the Indiana Department of Health, Indiana surpassed 1.4 million confirmed COVID-19 cases. The state hit that milestone just one week after surpassing 1.3 million.
Indiana has reported 110,696 new cases in the last week. For context: the entire month of November only reported 81,211 and all of December reported 160,934.
In addition to surpassing 1.4 million confirmed cases, the IDOH added 16,563 new cases to the state’s total Thursday, setting yet another pandemic record.
Experts say this is largely driven by the omicron variant. In October, the state averaged 1,875.5 new cases per day, November it averaged 2,707. But in December, when the strain was making its way through the U.S., that grew to 5,191.4 new cases per day. In the last week, the state has averaged nearly 13,837.0 new cases per day.
More populous counties reported the most new cases – both in total and per 10,000 residents. Marion, Allen, Lake, Hamilton, Vanderburgh and Tippecanoe counties all reported more than 4,000 new cases in the last week. Vanderburgh, Hancock, Allen and Gibson counties all reported more than 210 new cases per 10,000 residents.
On top of this surge in new cases, the state broke the pandemic record for its COVID-19 hospital census on Tuesday. It was set in November 2020.
Health experts say those hospitalizations are still primarily from the state’s winter delta surge. But while omicron is less likely to be severe, the crush of new cases could still strain the health system.
Contact Lauren at lchapman@wfyi.org or follow her on Twitter at @laurenechapman_.
