Indiana COVID-19 cases have been declining for three weeks, but the state remains under a public health emergency. Indiana law allows a governor to renew an emergency declaration 30 days at a time. Governor Holcomb has done so every month since last March, most recently last week. But while COVID hospitalizations have declined by one-third over the last three weeks, the virus still has more than 17-hundred Hoosiers hospitalized, nearly five times the low point reached in June. And non-COVID patients still need hospital care too — in all, more than three-quarters of Indiana’s intensive care beds are occupied. Holcomb notes several hospitals are still periodically turning patients away, and National Guard troops have been sent to some hospitals to help with staffing needs.
