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UPDATE: Over 100 positive COVID-19 cases in Clay County
*UPDATE: As of noon Tuesday, August 4, officials at both the Indiana State Department of Health and the Clay County Health Department confirmed the total provided in this story changed from 99 to 101 after the newspaper went to press. Please be aware the change will impact the data presented. The Times will update this story as needed.
Original story published in The Brazil Times
99 cases and counting
The Clay County data for positive COVID-19 cases is different at the local health department at the Indiana State Department of Health. While the ISDH shows 97 cases Monday at noon, local health officials corrected the number to 99 cases.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, health officials explained that the situation is extremely fluid, and numbers provided in the data should be considered provisional.
Initially, the Centers For Disease Control was confirming the test results, which slowed down the process. Once states were allowed to process the data at a state level, information was provided quicker.
However, state data is still considered provisional. Data at the state level reflects the information provided to the ISDH by various labs doing the testing throughout all counties, and some COVID-19 testing results could potentially go straight back to local health departments were residents lived before being sent to the state’s health office, which updates the state data daily at noon.
County health departments often receive their test results throughout the day as testing is completed, which provides a faster collection of data and a quicker turnaround of the contact tracing process to help slow the spread of the virus.
This slight delay is why the ISDH recommends local health department information be utilized when differences are reported.
According to data provided Monday by the ISDH, Clay County’s positive COVID-19 cases rose from 94 on July 31 to a cumulative total of 99 (corrected by CCHD) cases three days later.
The data for District 7 positive cases the Wabash Valley, including:
• VIGO - 474 Positive Cases among the 1,232 tested, with 10 deaths.
• GREENE - 239 Positive Cases among the 3,344 tested, with 34 deaths (one new).
• PUTNAM - 222 Positive Cases among the 3,561 tested, with eight deaths.
• CLAY - 97 Positive Cases among the 2,371 tested, with five deaths.
• OWEN - 78 Positive Cases among the 2,456 tested, with one death.
• SULLIVAN - 76 Positive Cases among the 2,084 tested, with one death.
• PARKE - 45 Positive Cases among the 1,225 tested, with one death reported.
• VERMILLION - 38 Positive Cases among the 1,228 tested, with no deaths reported.
District 7 shows a positive COVID-19 test rate at 4.8 percent, with the total of residents tested at 26,501 (192 new test results) and confirmation of a total 1,269 cases, with nine new cases reported since Friday.
The ISDH reports overall 68,433 positive cases among the 6.7 million Indiana residents, with 775,482 residents tested, and 2,780 deaths reported. The state’s data suggests that the increasing number of Indiana residents tested has lowered the overall percentage of Indiana residents to 8.8 percent. (New data regarding a daily positivity test rate has a preliminary rate of 19.4 percent from July 27 to August 2. The data is considered provisional, reflecting only the information published to the ISDH.)
On Monday, Indiana residents whose physician listed their death with COVID-19 as a contributing cause remains stable at 200: Deaths diagnosed by medical staff based on X-rays, scans, and other clinical symptoms with the absence of a COVID-19 test. ISDH reported a total of 904 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 throughout Indiana.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US), there are cumulative 4,649,402 cases reported in the United States (47,576 new cases reported), with 154,471 deaths (469 new deaths).
The World Health Organization reports 17,660,523 cases of COVID-19 as of August 1, with 680,894 confirmed deaths throughout the world.