County’s COVID-19 count continues to climb

<p>Local COVID-19 cases continued to climb over the weekend, while the county’s death toll remained the same.</p><p>As of noon Sunday, 172 Johnson County residents had been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, said Mike Pruitt, spokesperson for the county’s incident management team. That’s up 11 from Saturday, and 28 from Friday. So far, six Johnson County residents—all elderly—have died from coronavirus-related illnesses.</p><p>The Indiana State Department of Health on Sunday said the number of presumptive positive cases for COVID-19 in the state has risen to 4,411 after the emergence of 458 more cases.</p><p>The death toll in the state jumped to 127, up from 116 the previous day.</p><p>The department reported that 22,652 people have been tested so far, up from 19,800 in Saturday’s report. The ISDH said the test numbers reflect only those tests reported to the department and the numbers should not be characterized as a comprehensive total.</p><p>The first COVID-19 case in Indiana was reported March 6.</p><p>Indianapolis reported 1,760 cases—up from 1,570 cases from the previous day—with 37 deaths. The state said 8,496 people have been tested in the city.</p><p>Counties in the Indianapolis area have reported at least 37 cases each: Hamilton (300), Johnson (167), Hendricks (177), Boone (57), Hancock (61), Madison (86), Morgan (65) and Shelby (37), according to the state health department’s numbers, which are more delayed than the local counts.</p><p>Only four of Indiana’s 92 counties have not reported cases.</p><p>As of Sunday morning, 312,249 cases had been reported in the United States, with 8,503 deaths, according to a running tally maintained by health researchers at Johns Hopkins University &amp;amp; Medicine.</p><p>More than 1.22 million cases have been reported globally, with 65,884 deaths. More than 252,538 people have recovered.</p><p><em>The Indianapolis Business Journal contributed to this report.</em></p>