Tuesday evenings in Fishers remain the time for a regular update from Josh Robinson, Epidemiologist for the Fishers Health Department.  He hasn’t had a lot of good news for us in recent weeks, and this week is no different.

“Emerging data indicates that the Omicron variant is 3 times as transmissible as the previously dominant variant, which was Delta,” said Robinson in his video post.

State health officials say 85% of COVID cases in Indiana have been identified as Omicron.

According to Robinson, this is creating a “massive jump in new cases here locally, and around the state.”

The latest state numbers show about 9,600 cases a day in Indiana recently.

Even though Omicron is less severe, it is causing more hospitalizations due to the sheer number of  total cases.

Vaccines do provide protection, particularly from “severe outcomes.”  Robinson cites these Indiana state numbers….of those with COVID, the vaccinated are less than 1% ( 0.65%  to be exact) hospitalized, and even fewer, 0.03%, of those vaccinated, have died.

Now for this week’s numbers:

The Hamilton County unique individual positivity rate increased to 37.1%, compared to last week’s 24.6%.

The Fishers testing site reported 39.4% positive COVID tests, compared to previous week’s 27.1%.

The case incidence rate (a 14 day rolling average per 100,000 population) went up to 249.2, compared to previous week’s 162.6.

Hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed availability is at 7.5% in Marion and surrounding counties, a very low rate of availability.  39.6% of ICU patients have in the same counties are COVID positive.

The Fishers Health Department is setting aside certain days and times for students, parents and staff of HSE Schools to schedule test.  For information on that, and how anyone may schedule a COVID test, use this link.

In this week’s video update, Josh Robinson reviews how long to isolate yourself once you test positive.

You may access the video update at the link below.