Since a number of us are staying-in-place at home, here are a couple of coronavirus items with a local slant.

First, there has been an ongoing back and forth between the Hamilton County Health Department and the publisher of the Hamilton County Reporter, Jeff Jellison.

It all started with Jellison writing a commentary in his newspaper, urging the Hamilton County Health Department to be more specific about where coronavirus positive tests and deaths are happening within the county.  He offered the front page of his paper for health officials to make their case.

The Health Department released a statement that Jellison published on the front page of the Reporter, arguing that health privacy laws would prevent such a disclosure, and could expose the county to litigation if such information was released.

On the front page of the Reporter’s April 7th edition, Jellison openly questioned whether the law is the reason for the lack of transparency or is the Hamilton County Health Department “hiding behind the law” to keep this information private.

I would suspect this discussion is not over.

On another matter, the Hamilton East Library may be physically closed, but both the Noblesville and Fishers Library parking lots will have hotspot WiFi available to anyone needing it.  For a map of the spots, use this link.

For more on the online offerings from the Hamilton East Libraries, use this link.

Allow me one piece of good news non-coronavirus related.  Congratulations to HSE High School’s Mabor Majak for being named to the Indiana High School All-Star basketball team.  A well-deserved honor!