INDIANAPOLIS — The Back on Track Indiana reopening plan has been paused after Gov. Eric Holcomb announced last week that he was moving the state to Stage 4.5 on July 4 instead of the previously planned Stage 5.

“This virus is on the prowl and in some places it is gaining momentum. It’s not slowing down. That spread is not slowing down. It’s just doing the opposite,” Holcomb said during his July 1 press conference.

Citing recent upticks in confirmed cases and hospitalizations of those sick with COVID-19 along with surges of virus cases in surrounding states, Holcomb said the state needed to hit pause on completely reopening.

“That’s why you see a number of states that even though they maybe reopened recently, they are now going back and closing some of those facilities or closing parts of their economy,” he said.

“It’s moving even within our borders, in different counties in our states, different positivity rates. We are living on virus time so to speak. …The volatility that we see even in some of areas of our own state, but especially around the country and especially around our own borders is of concern and that’s what given us cause to push pause in some areas.”

The initial five-phase plan to reopen the state had Stage 5 happening on July 4 with the entire state opening back up.

During the press conference, the governor said the uptick situation will be monitored over the next two weeks before deciding to officially move to Stage 5 on July 18.

What is allowed?

On July 2, the Indiana State Department of Health reported 453 additional COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 46,387 of Hoosiers known to have coronavirus.

That same day, 13 additional deaths due to the coronavirus were also reported. A total of 2,469 Hoosiers have died from COVID-19 so far.

More than 490,000 Hoosiers have been tested for COVID-19.

In Brown County, 548 residents had been tested as of July 2. Brown County had 38 confirmed cases and one COVID-19 death as of July 2.

Restaurants and businesses here continue to slowly reopen their doors with social distancing restrictions in place while others are choosing to wait.

At the press conference, Holcomb said restaurants, bars and nightclubs will remain at current limitations until at least July 18, when moving to Stage 5 will be considered again. Large gatherings will continue to be limited to 250 people or fewer.

Holcomb said the state gives a “green flag” to mostly outdoor activities, citing that the risk of transmission has been found to be up to 19 times less when outdoors compared to indoor activities.

“If you look where our surges were, certainly they were indoor activities,” he said.

He continued that local parades or fireworks shows over 4th of July weekend were able to continue, but anyone attending should follow social distancing guidelines and wear masks.

Holcomb continued that the decision was made to hit the pause button on Stage 5 because state officials want to be “safe and not sorry.”

“Wanting not to find ourselves looking back going ‘You know our gut told us to do this,’” he said.

“It’s really not the new normal to me anymore, it’s really the next normal. Things will change next week, they will change next month, they will change next year, maybe the same virus, it may mutate, as we’ve talked before, right before our very eyes. We have to be prepared.”

The state continues to use data to drive decisions by focusing on four guiding principles, Holcomb said.

Those principles are: The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 decreasing for 14 days; the state retaining its surge capacity for critical care beds and ventilators; the state retaining its ability to test all Hoosiers who are COVID-19 symptomatic as well as health care workers, first responders, and frontline employees; health officials having systems in place to contact all individuals who test positive for COVID-19 and expand contact tracing.

In addition to remaining at Stage 4.5, a new statewide initiative to encourage Hoosiers to wear masks to limit the spread of COVID-19 was also announced at the press conference last week.

The #MaskUpHoosiers initiative is launching with videos and photos of state government leaders, celebrities and Hoosiers from all walks of life sharing their heartfelt reasons for wearing a mask in public.

“I hope individuals watch the news every night and they see what has happened in other states where there hasn’t been social distancing and there hasn’t been mask-wearing. I hope we start take to heart that Indiana could very easily be in that same situation in the next two to four weeks or six weeks if we don’t take this to heart,” Dr. Kristina Box said.

Box said the mask campaign is meant to go out on social media where it can reach young people who may not watch the press conferences or the news talking about the importance of masks.

“The point of that is to say it really is about protecting other individuals and can give you some protection also,” she said.

Box said the public wearing masks in public is a “really important message for us to get out” after both the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization recommended doing so.

The restrictions in Stage 4.5 will go until at least July 17 and include limiting large gatherings up to 250. This restriction applies to wedding receptions, parties and other events where people are “close physical contact for extended periods of time, particularly indoors,” a press release from the governor’s office states.

Capacities for dining rooms, bar seating in restaurants, bars and nightclubs will remain at the same level they are now as long social distancing guidelines are being followed.

Other entertainment sites and facilities, like bowling alleys, movie theaters and amusement parks may continue to open at 50-percent capacity as per Stage 4 restrictions. Raceways may also continue operations open at 50-percent grandstand capacity.

Stage 4.5 also allows for fairs, festivals and other outdoor events to open with youth overnight camps also being allowed to open.

This new stage does not prevent schools from opening for the 2020-2021 school year beginning on July 1 with all extra-curricular and co-curricular activities resuming on July 6. Brown County Schools are working to bring students back on Aug. 5.

In Stage 4.5, Hoosiers who are 65 and over and those with high-risk health conditions should continue to adhere to social distancing guidelines and wearing a mask in public place is highly recommended.

More orders extended

Holcomb also signed an order last week extending a ban on foreclosures, evictions and disconnection of utilities for Hoosiers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The governor signed the executive order on June 30. The prohibition on evictions from rental properties and filing foreclosures was extended through July 31.

Residents, lending institutions and landlords are encouraged to make payment plans to avoid later evictions or foreclosures, a press release from the governor’s office states.

People who are struggling to pay rent due to the pandemic can also apply for rent assistance through the $25 million Indiana COVID-19 Rental Assistance Program. Applications will be accepted online beginning at 9 a.m. Monday, July 13 at IndianaHousingNow.org, the release states.

In the governor’s executive order, it states that Indiana’s unemployment rate was 12.3 percent in May after rising to 17.5 percent in April. In May 2019, the state’s unemployment rate was at 3.3-percent.

Utility companies were also ordered to not disconnect customers through Aug. 14. Customers and the companies are also encouraged to establish payment plans now to prevent future disconnects of service, according to the press release.

Under the governor’s order, the temporary licensing of health care workers who do not currently hold an active license was extended for an additional 30 days.

This applies to retired medical professionals along with those who hold a license in another state and certain medical students and graduates. Those professionals can assist with screenings, telemedicine and other basic procedures to allow for regularly licensed medical professionals to be on the front lines of the pandemic, according to the release.

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Through at least July 17 the following restrictions will continue under Stage 4.5 of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s “Back On Track Indiana” plan to reopen the state’s economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The state moved into Stage 4.5 on July 4 instead of the previously planned Stage 5:

• Social gatherings following the CDC’s social distancing guidelines will be limited to up to 250 people. This limit applies to wedding receptions, parties, and other events where people are in close physical contact for extended periods of time, particularly indoors.
• Dining room food service may continue operations at up to 75 percent capacity as long as social distancing is observed. Bar seating in restaurants may continue operations at 50 percent capacity. Bars and nightclubs may continue operations open at 50 percent capacity as long as they adhere to social distancing guidelines.
• Cultural, entertainment and tourism sites may continue operations open at 50 percent capacity.
• Movie theaters, bowling alleys and similar facilities may continue operations open at 50 percent capacity.
• Amusement parks, water parks and similar facilities may continue operations open at 50 percent capacity. Reservations are encouraged to limit the number of customers at any one time.
• Raceways may continue operations open at 50 percent grandstand capacity.

This “pause” on the Back on Track Indiana plan was due to a recent uptick in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations of Hoosiers with the virus.

Stage 4.5 does allow for fairs, festivals and other outdoor events to open. Youth overnight camps can also open in this stage. Schools can also continue to plan to open this month ahead of the 2020-2021 school year.

The governor will hold another press conference this week to update the state on the upticks and if the state will be moving to Stage 5 later this month.

“We want to make sure we’re providing you updates on what occurs over the next seven or 14 days. We didn’t take this lightly. We evaluated at every angle we knew,” Holcomb said during the press conference on July 1.

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At the July 1 press conference it was announced that the state would report facility-specific COVID-19 data and the plan is to have preliminary data available to the public by the middle of this month.

“Because our data collection has focused up until now on identifying new cases in facilities and it did not begin until April 10 it will take some time to build a dashboard that will allow the public to search by facility and determine when COVID cases occurred, how many residents and staff died, how many recovered and the demographics of those involved,” said Dr. Dan Rusyniak, chief medical officer for the Family and Social Services Administration.

The state will require all long-term care facilities to give an “accurate and comprehensive list of all of the residents and staff who have developed COVID and when those cases occurred” back to March 1, Rusyniak said.

The data collected will be used to create a dashboard that can be updated and interactive that will be publicly available around two to four weeks after the preliminary data release.

Rusyniak said the state had been focused on early identification and mitigation of COVID-19 outbreaks in these facilities with a focus of resources on testing and infection response at the peak of the pandemic.

“We’ve also focused communication on getting the information that is necessary to families,” he said.

“Throughout this time we have supported facilities and local health departments’ rights to publicly report their data on their own web pages.”

AARP and associations that represent long-term care facilities have announced their support for providing facility-level information to the public.

Since the peak of the virus in April, Rusyniak said that the state had seen “marked decreases in COVID outbreaks” with weekly cases reported decreasing by 77-percent and weekly deaths reported decreasing by 83-percent.

Rusyniak credited that decrease to the early use of strike teams, targeted testing, infection control, prioritizing personal protection equipment and close collaboration with nursing homes. State “strike teams” went into long-term care facilities to help administer testing and train workers there on how to sanitize.

Nearly 40,000 nursing home staff were also tested at the state’s free testing sites in June. Rusyniak said the state was working on an analysis of that data and that the number of those tested could be higher.

“Many staff were excluded because they had already been tested just prior to the initiative or they had a previous diagnosis of COVID,” he said.

He also credited Hoosiers for following the social distancing guidelines that decreased community spread.

“By decreasing community spread through social distancing, washing your hands and wearing masks fewer nursing home staff were exposed and unknowingly went to work with COVID-19,” he said.

Because of these decreases, the state was one of the first two states in the country in June to allow for outdoor visitations at facilities with no active COVID-19 cases.

Stage 4.5 will also allow for some indoor visitations to begin as of July 4 at assisted living facilities and nursing homes.

But to make sure these indoor visits are a possibility, Rusyniak said it will take Hoosiers continuing to follow social distancing guidelines and wearing a mask in public.

“While the risk of dying from COVID-19 is low for people 19 to 30 years old, the risk of spreading it is high. Someone who does not practice social distancing or wear a mask in public and is exposed to COVID in the community risks more than their own health,” he said.

“For instance, if they visit a friend or family member, who like over 60,000 Hoosiers work in a nursing home, they risk causing an outbreak.”

He added that not being able to visit with family members has had an impact on the health and wellbeing of residents in those facilities.

“Families and residents have waited patiently through this pandemic to be rejoined,” he said.

“We must now do our part to make sure that this happens.”

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