State’s Health Commissioner tests positive for coronavirus
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
Indiana Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box, her daughter and her infant grandson have tested positive for COVID-19.
Holcomb
Box
Box announced the test results during a Wednesday coronavirus briefing with Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb. She spoke via an audio connection in the briefing and described the process she followed to get tested and the isolation procedures she is following. She said she went home Friday afternoon after her grandson developed symptoms while at a daycare facility. Her daughter later developed symptoms. Box said she has not developed symptoms.
The governor also extended the state’s mask mandate, set to expire Saturday, to Nov. 14. He also extended Stage 5 of the Back on Track reopening plan.
The governor chided Hoosiers who are ignoring health and safety guidelines to curb the coronavirus, and noted surges could mean returning to more reopening restrictions. “Stage 5 is not the stage when the checkered flag comes out.”
He noted a statewide seven-day average positivity rate that’s now at 5.3 percent, a record number of daily positive cases, and an increase in hospitalizations. “The numbers have to do with how many of us are and are not letting our guard down,” Holcomb said multiple times during a Wednesday’s coronavirus briefing that had technical issues with the sound and featured government leaders speaking from different locations.
Dr. Lindsay Weaver, chief medical officer of the Indiana Department of Health, said she, the governor, members of the department’s officer and the governor’s staff will be tested Wednesday afternoon for the coronavirus. Weaver said Box worked with tracers to determine who she’d been in contact with in the past 24 hours. The state now has more than 900 contact tracers and may soon add 300 more, the chief medical officer said.
Holcomb said he would be quarantining himself until he gets his coronavirus test results. He planned to be tested after the briefing.
Weaver said the hospitalization rate is the highest it’s been since mid-May. Hospitals’ intensive care units are being stressed and facilities are also facing a lack of personnel, she said.
Hospitalizations on Wednesday jumped to 1,357, an 85 percent increase over hospitalizations in the last 31 days.
Holcomb noted that neighboring states and other places in the nation and world also are experiencing increases similar to Indiana.