County reports two more COVID-19 deaths

Two more Johnson County residents have died from coronavirus-related illnesses, county health officials said Friday.

Both were elderly, said Betsy Swearingen, director of the Johnson County Health Department, but she did not know their ages Friday morning. They were Franklin and Greenwood residents, she said.

As of Friday morning, 144 county residents have tested positive for the virus, local health officials said.

Twenty-four more people have died in Indiana from coronavirus-related illnesses, boosting the state’s virus death toll past 100 while its confirmed cases topped 3,400, state health officials said Friday.

The new deaths increased Indiana’s statewide deaths to 102 for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, while another 408 confirmed cases of the virus boosted the state’s total to 3,437, following corrections to the previous day’s total, the Indiana State Department of Healt h said.

The department has said that the additional deaths it reports each day occurred over multiple days. Those deaths are reported once there is a confirmed positive test for COVID-19 in each case.

Indianapolis had 126 of the 408 new coronavirus cases reported Friday. Indianapolis and the seven counties surrounding it account for 44% of Indiana’s COVID-19 deaths and more than 60% of its confirmed cases. Indianapolis alone has had 33 COVID-19 deaths, or 32% of Indiana’s total, and 1,429 confirmed cases that account for 42% of the state’s total.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. Older adults and people with existing health problems are among those particularly susceptible to more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority of people recover.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.