References to Indiana county - coded reds and oranges and coronavirus dashboards have been fewer in recent days. That appears to be changing as half of Indiana’s counties are now in the highest-risk level of COVID-19 spread and hospitalizations are reportedly up 25% in the past week.
The Indiana Department of Health says 46 of the state’s 92 counties are in the highest-risk red category. All other counties in the state are listed as orange except for Crawford in extreme southern Indiana which is in the lower-risk yellow.
Shelby, Decatur, Hancock and Johnson counties remain orange this week. Neighboring Rush and Bartholomew counties are red.
It's the largest number of high-risk counties since last winter when 73 had red ratings in early January. Indiana only had three counties in red when the month of November started.
MHP Covid Incident Command Report
Pediatric Covid Vaccine Clinic: A Pediatric Covid Vaccination Clinic will be held Saturday, December 11, 8AM-2PM. We will administer the newly approved Covid vaccine for ages 5-11, which is one-third of the adult dose. We will also administer the Covid vaccine for pediatric patients ages 12+. Please call MHP Pediatrics (317) 398-7337 to schedule your vaccine appointment.
Covid testing positivity rate: Indiana’s Covid positivity rate is at 14.7% and Shelby County’s positivity rate is 12.5%. Both represent a substantial increase compared to the prior reporting period. Shelby County’s rise in Covid positivity rate places us in the “orange” category.
MHP Priority Care and primary care walk-ins: Walk-in volumes at our locations are continuing to increase. Priority Care is averaging 70+ urgent care patients per day. MHP Family and Internal Medicine is seeing 45+ walk-in patients per day. MHP Pediatrics is seeing 85+ walk-in patients per day, which is well above our average. We are experiencing significant supply chain shortages for Covid testing across the enterprise.
Emergency Department: The Emergency Department is seeing between 71-75 patients per day over the last several days, which remains above our normal volumes. There has also been an increase in Covid infusion referrals. We are averaging over twenty Regeneron infusions per day. We have 3 remaining doses of Regeneron and we hope to receive additional doses soon. We do not have an anticipated ship date. The infusion drugs are the 2nd best defense against severe Covid and hospitalization. The best defense remains being fully vaccinated. If you are not yet vaccinated, please consider it. If you are eligible for a vaccine booster, please schedule it. Due to supply shortages, we can no longer rely on having the infusion drugs readily available to keep Covid positive patients out of the hospital.
Get your Covid vaccine at MedWorks Pharmacy: MedWorks Pharmacy is offering the Pfizer vaccine and Pfizer booster, Johnson & Johnson vaccine and booster, as well as the Pediatric Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. We request patients call to schedule an appointment for the Pediatric dosing, which is available on Wednesdays and Fridays. Call 317-421-2020 to schedule an appointment. All the other vaccines can be scheduled on the MHP website or by calling MedWorks directly. https://www.mymhp.org/news-media/categories/covid-19-updates/ We accept walk-ins for the adult vaccines as well.
Inpatient unit: Thirty-seven of our 40 beds are occupied on our 3rd floor inpatient unit.
- We currently have ten critical care patients on the 3rd floor and seven of those patients are due to Covid. Of the seven Covid-related critical care patients only one is vaccinated.
- We have two patients on ventilators, plus six additional patients who are on Vapotherm or BiPap.
- Nineteen of our inpatients are Covid positive and thirteen of them are unvaccinated.
