In one week’s time, Brown County went from being an island of relative coronavirus safety to part of the sea of “orange” counties.
From Friday, Nov. 6 to Thursday, Nov. 12, Brown County recorded 55 new COVID-19 cases — an average of nearly eight per day.
Over the weekend, from Friday, Nov. 13 to Monday at noon, we’d gained 39 more cases.
For this month, we’re already at 107 new cases. In the early part of the pandemic, it took seven months to get that many.
The Indiana State Department of Health color-codes a map each Wednesday based on spread of COVID-19, looking at weekly cases per 100,000 residents and virus test positivity in each county. For the week of Nov. 4, Brown County was the only county in Indiana in “blue,” the lowest risk, prompting television stations in Indianapolis and Louisville to spread that news.
But when the ISDH updated its map on Nov. 11, Brown County was squarely in “orange” territory, the second-highest level of virus spread, along with 77 other counties. The map takes into account data from the previous Monday through Sunday, so, Nov. 2 to 8 for this measure.
Based on the county’s “orange” status, the number of students and staff reporting symptoms, and the number of students and staff on their quarantine lists, Brown County High School and Brown County Junior High School were abruptly moved to all-virtual instruction the evening of Nov. 11, where they’ll stay until at least Nov. 29.
The other Brown County schools are still operating in person.
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Brown County’s moving average of positive cases has been between six and eight since Nov. 8. The highest it had been before the average began to tick up in October was two, back in July.
Besides the two schools, the virus has begun to affect other essential institutions, too.
The IGA had to close for a day after an employee tested positive and others went into quarantine; then the store had to temporarily reduce its hours to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. because of staffing.
Also, two county employees have tested positive in two different buildings.
As of Nov. 12, Brown County Health and Living Community was still reporting zero cases of COVID-19 in residents, and fewer than five cases in nursing home staff, according to the “long-term care dashboard” on the state’s coronavirus website.
The free COVID-19 testing site at the Brown County Music Center saw 170 people drive up to get tested in one day, setting a new record on Nov. 10.
The reasons for people being tested have been mixed, said Susan Armstrong, director of the Brown County Emergency Management Agency, who was called in to help that day.
“I saw quite a few people that I checked in who were not symptomatic, but were told they were close contacts (of someone who tested positive). And then we did have some people that were reporting symptoms,” she said.
If you are experiencing any symptoms — congestion, runny nose, fever of at least 100.4, difficulty breathing, diarrhea, headache, nausea or vomiting, sore throat, muscle pain, fatigue, chills, or new loss of taste or smell — it’s recommended that you be tested for the virus, then isolate yourself while you’re waiting for results.
“Unfortunately, we’re in that flu time and that sinus time, so a lot of people are like, ‘I usually have sinus (problems) around this time of year, but I just wanted to be safe,’” Armstrong said.
“The spread is so much in the state right now, and there’s such a spike all over of this,” she added.
“People are ignoring some of those sniffles that end up being coronavirus, and it ends up that you spread it to members of your family,” she said.
Why so many cases now?
Gatherings of multiple households, vacations, and traveling to other counties for work are some of the contributing factors to Brown County’s rise in cases, Armstrong said.
Just because you’re getting together with people you know in a small group at someone’s home, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re safe.
“Statewide, countrywide, people are having these gatherings at their homes and it’s cooler so they’re inside, which is making it easy to spread,” she said.
What role is tourism playing?
Armstrong said they don’t have data that definitely say tourists are bringing COVID here. “But is it a speculation that having so many people come to our county probably contributed to some of the positives? I think you would have to assume yes,” she said. “If that many people are coming into our county, it would be likely that some of those people would have been positive just based upon the statewide numbers.”
Tourists shouldn’t be blamed for it, though, she said. People who work outside Brown County could have a similar effect. “They’re traveling to counties where there’s a greater amount of spread and coming home, stopping in counties where there’s a larger amount of spread and coming home,” she said.
Virus fatigue is another factor.
“I believe everyone is getting a little just done with it, you know what I mean? They’re fatigued with the whole thing and I think that’s the struggle we’re all dealing with. It’s been going on for so long, people are just, ‘Let me get back to my regular life,’” Armstrong said.
Contact tracing — talking to people who have tested positive to find out who they might have exposed to the virus — is being handled jointly by the Indiana State Department of Health, the local health department and Brown County Schools, Armstrong said.
The health department did not answer a question by press time about whether they’d learned, through contact tracing, of any group of cases being linked to any particular event, gathering or place, such as the “superspreader events” you may have heard about in other states.
Who is a ‘close contact’?
The Centers for Disease Control defines “close contact” as being within 6 feet of a person for a cumulative 15 minutes.
Armstrong said that’s a term that seems to be confusing people. Contact tracers are charged with notifying anyone who’s been a close contact of a person who tested positive.
“Someone popping into the IGA to get groceries may not have been in contact with that particular person that long, so it wouldn’t be that everybody who shops at that store” would be a close contact, Armstrong said.
When you get into secondary contact — being in contact with a person who was in contact with someone who was positive — that also gets confusing, she said.
“’Well, I was around that person, and they just got called (as a close contact of someone else)’ — yes, if you want to go get tested because you’re concerned, then absolutely get tested, but you wouldn’t be getting that call from the health department unless that person you were around ended up testing positive,” she said.
How many are still active?
A frequent question asked on COVID-19 update posts is “How many of these cases are recovered and how many of them are still active?”
Each day at noon, on coronavirus.in.gov, the Indiana State Department of Health reports new positive cases and deaths for the state as a whole and for each county, as well as cumulative numbers of positive cases, but it doesn’t indicate the degree to which those who tested positive are sick right now.
That’s not an easy question to answer, Armstrong said.
“We look at it as 14 days past a positive test is about when they’re no longer symptomatic. But there are people that continue to test positive and continue to be symptomatic longer than that, which is why it’s so hard to tie that down,” she said.
The Regenstrief Institute, which has been working with the ISDH to organize data, posts a pie chart which shows an estimate, for the state as a whole, of how many people have recovered from the virus, died from the virus or are still fighting it.
As of Nov. 13, an estimated 27 percent of COVID-19 patients had active infections, 71 percent had recovered and 2 percent had died statewide.
That website is regenstrief.org/covid-dashboard.
About your holiday plans
The Brown County Health Department is spreading advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The safest way to celebrate this year is with people in your own household, the CDC says.
However, “if you do plan to attend a gathering, bring your own food, drinks, plates, cups and utensils; wear a mask, and safely store your mask while eating and drinking; avoid going in and out of the areas where food is being prepared or handled, such as in the kitchen; and use single-use options, like salad dressing and condiment packets,” the CDC says.
Holiday gatherings are a concern for local emergency management staff trying to manage this pandemic.
“It’s hard, because everybody wants to get together for the holidays. Even my family, we’re talking about, ‘How big do we want to do it? Do we even want to do something?’ It’s a struggle, because we do have those older family members or those people that have compromised immune systems that wouldn’t be able to recover, and nobody wants to be responsible for why somebody is sick,” Armstrong said.
“I wouldn’t go if it was something like that, where an older member of my family was around.”
She understands that family members might have different beliefs on how serious the virus threat is.
“It shouldn’t be a political thing, and I know it’s coming to that right now,” she said. “… From my stance, my office, I don’t care about the political piece of it as much as I care about keeping my community safe, and what do I need to do?”
The ‘just let me get it’ view
“I think one of the most important things I would want to say, because I hear this a lot, that, ‘It’s not going to kill me. I’m healthy. Just let me get it’ — which is fine if you want to take that stance,” Armstrong said.
“But it’s not just you. It’s your grandma, or your mom or dad, or the little old lady at the grocery store that you’re close to that may not be able to overcome this as easily as you can.”
In Brown County, the age group most likely to test positive for the virus is those in their 60s. Two of our three deaths from COVID-19 have been age 80-plus; data on the third person who died isn’t publicly unknown.
Even though you may be sick of not being able to live your normal life, “continue to clean. Wear masks,” Armstrong said. “I know they’re uncomfortable and it’s difficult. It is annoying to remember to grab that mask when you get out of your car to go to a store, but we have to keep being vigilant.
“Clean spaces, disinfect when you can, hand sanitizer — all those things, we just need to continue to do that to take care of our community,” she said.
Emergency officials have no prediction of when the virus will let up. “I think it depends on how we act and what we do, both as a community and as the leadership — not just at county level but state and national,” she said.
“We all have to band together.”
Brown County leaders have received no specific information on when a vaccine would become available here, but Armstrong said her office was working on a delivery model so they’re ready when that day comes.
