INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana’s governor announced Wednesday that some coronavirus restrictions are being reinstated after several weeks of sharp increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths.
The new steps being imposed by Gov. Eric Holcomb will limit crowd sizes in those counties at the higher-risk levels of coronavirus spread and would cover 87 of the state’s 92 counties, including Montgomery and Fountain, as of Wednesday’s update from the state health department.
A new executive order starting this weekend will limit crowd sizes to 20 people in the highest-risk red counties and 50 people in the next-riskiest orange counties. The new order will also limit capacity at K-12 sports and extracurricular events.
Holcomb said he was also extending the statewide mask mandate for another month.
Holcomb had decided in late September to lift nearly all of Indiana’s business and crowd size restrictions. Since then, Indiana hospitals have seen a 200% increase in COVID-19 patients and the seven-day rolling average deaths has gone jumped from 10 a day to 38, just short of the state’s peak in late April.
Montgomery County reported an additional 31 cases on Wednesday. Eight of those were related to congregate
living, the Montgomery County Health
Department reported. Those cases were isolated and quarantines were quickly established, the health department said.
The remaining cases were community spread, according to the health department.
More than 950 cases have been reported in Montgomery County since the beginning of the pandemic, the state’s COVID-19 dashboard shows.
The new restrictions are “basically what we recommended locally last week,” health department administrator Amber Reed said.
Fountain County reported its fifth coronavirus death on Wednesday. Ten new cases were confirmed on Wednesday, bringing the overall total of cases to 515 since the pandemic began.
Journal Review reporter Nick Hedrick contributed to this report
