How Lake County is responding to COVID-19
Contributed By:The 411 News
COVID-19 update from Indiana State Dept. of Health
Lake County, IN — Instead of focusing only on state numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths, Indiana health officials are also looking at three numbers showing how counties are responding to the virus.
Health officials are counting the number of people tested for COVID-19 each week in the county and how many of those test results come back positive. The weekly number of positive cases, the county’s total population and the weekly positivity rate determine a county score, ranging between 0 and three. The county score indicates the spread of COVID-19 and will guide decision making on the operations of schools, businesses and public facilities.
The Indiana State Dept. of Health website’s color-coded county map shows four colors to match the 4 ranges of county scores: blue, yellow, orange and red. View the map and more information at https://www.in.gov/coronavirus
The weekly update reflects data from the Monday through Sunday of the previous week. Data collected covers Monday, November 9 through Sunday, November 15. It is one week behind the current week.
The county score is calculated every Monday and reported on the following Wednesday. Lake County’s score, as of Wednesday, November 18th is 3, the maximum score.
Lake County reported 3,747 new cases between November 9th and November 15th. The weekly number of positive cases is 770 for every 100,000 people. Lake County's population is 487,016.
The county 7-day positivity rate is 25.4%. That means 25.4 of every 100 persons tested have the virus.
A county score between zero and 0.5 allows operations to continue without restrictions and signifies the spread of COVID-19 is minimal. Scores equal to or greater than 1 mean the COVID-19 spread continues and the level of restrictions increase as the county score nears the maximum score of three.
Gary and East Chicago are the only 2 cities in Lake County with health departments.
As of November 15, the Gary Health Department reported 2,605 positive cases since the pandemic began in March. For the week of November 9 to November 15, Gary reported 337 new cases.
Visit www.gary.gov and click on the “Coronavirus (COVID-19) How to Protect Yourself” banner to see Gary's response to the virus.
As of November 18th, the East Chicago Health Department reported 1,793 positive cases since the pandemic began. For the week of November 7 through 13, East Chicago reported 183 new cases.
To see East Chicago's response to the virus, visit https://in-eastchicago.civicplus.com/375/CovidNovel-Coronavirus-Information
As of Nov. 17, the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) reported 268,222 cases of the coronavirus have been diagnosed since the pandemic began in March; 4,830 Hoosiers have died.
As of Nov. 17, a total of 23,953 positive cases have been reported in Lake County with 430 deaths.
Story Posted:11/18/2020
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