Indiana is quickly becoming a hotspot for Coronavirus. In the past three weeks, there has been a 90% statewide increase in positive COVID-19 cases, averaging to 1,519 new cases per day.

Indiana is now among three other states that have been added to Chicago’s emergency travel order, requiring quarantine for anyone traveling in. Despite this dangerously fast increase in cases, Governor Holcomb is moving forward with stage 5 reopening plans.

He believes the increase in cases is not related to the size of gatherings. “Every one of these cases is an extremely localized occurrence,” Governor Holcomb said. “There is proof out there that folks are operating responsibly in stage 5. We need to do more of that, not less of that.”

Governor Holcomb has also decided to extend the mask mandate until November in the hope that if people continue to wear their masks in public, the spread may slow. “Its our behavior, it’s our actions that need to be addressed and they have to be addressed together,” Holcomb said. “The shutting down approach is missing the point.”

The state of Indiana set back-to-back record highs for COVID-19 cases on Oct. 9th and 10th, and Monroe County is no exception to the statewide increase. Last Monday, Monroe County passed 3,000 total COVID-19 cases.

IU is now starting to feel the effects of these numbers. After five weeks of a decline in COVID numbers, there has been a slight increase. Last week, IU reported a 0.2% positivity rate increase through the COVID-19 mitigation testing across all campuses for the week of October 4th.

According to IU’s COVID-19 dashboard weekly update, the calculated weekly point prevalence of COVID-19 cases was 0.8% for IU Bloomington (0.7% the week prior). IU Spokesperson Chuck Carney believes this small increase is nothing to be concerned about but says the numbers could be tied to Indiana’s uptick. “These results are good. We slightly had an uptick this week but that is the news and it’s not a big uptick and our students are still doing what we have asked them to do and thats all credit to them,” he says.

Change is coming to campus soon however. By the first week of November, IU will be introducing new labs for mitigation testing allowing for a more efficient, inexpensive and faster way to track the spread of Coronavirus at IU. All things considered, IU believes COVID-19 control is going well across all campuses. “There is no plan to change anything we’re doing right now. We’re going to continue with the regulations we have in place; that includes wearing masks on campus,” Carney says.

Along with IU’s introduction of new labs, Monroe County has decided to open a new COVID testing site to provide Bloomington residents with a quick turnaround testing option. This location is set to open in the coming weeks in downtown Bloomington and will replace the current OptumServe site at the National Guard Armory.