New Indiana coronavirus order won’t ban tighter local rules

INDIANAPOLIS – Any easing of Indiana’s statewide stay-at-home order won’t limit the authority of city or county officials from imposing tighter restrictions in their attempts to slow the coronavirus that has killed at least 1,000 people across the state, the governor said Thursday.

Gov. Eric Holcomb is poised to announce on Friday modifications to the business and travel restrictions that have been in place since March 25 as a growing number of states are loosening their shutdown orders.

Indianapolis officials, however, extended the city’s stay-at-home order on Thursday by two weeks through May 15, saying the state’s largest city was still experiencing too many COVID-19 cases to safely relax restrictions. Some other cities and counties around the state also have adopted rules responding to outbreaks in their communities.

Holcomb said he supported Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett’s decision and that the new state order wouldn’t strip away local authority.

“Local jurisdictions can always be stricter than what we have said,” Holcomb said. “This has been the case, not just once, in the state of Indiana. We’ll seek to 100% of the time work with those local officials.”

Holcomb spoke Thursday from Kokomo, where he joined Vice-President Mike Pence in touring a General Motors electronics plant that’s been converted to produce critical care ventilators for hospitals around the country.

Holcomb said his changes to statewide restrictions will be “methodical” and come in stages, but did not provide any details

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Indiana health officials added 43 confirmed coronavirus-related fatalities to the state’s death toll on Thursday as the governor nears an announcement on changes to the statewide stay-at-home order.

The state has recorded 1,007 confirmed COVID-19 deaths since the outbreak hit Indiana in early March, the Indiana State Health Department said.

Six more presumed COVID-19 deaths added to the state statistics give Indiana 107 such fatalities. Those are deaths that state officials said doctors blame on coronavirus infections without confirmation of the illness from test results.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb has said he would announce changes Friday to the statewide stay-at-home order that has been in effect since March 25.

State officials are considering information such as hospitalization and death rates, along with the availability of intensive care unit beds and ventilators for those who are seriously ill, in deciding whether to lift any restrictions, Holcomb said.

Plans for significant increases in coronavirus testing and contact tracing have been announced by state officials this week.

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About 57,000 more people applied for unemployment benefits in Indiana last week as the state continues to see record numbers of newly jobless people stemming from the coronavirus economic slowdown.

Federal statistics released Thursday show Indiana has had nearly 570,000 people seek jobless aid over the past six weeks. That growth in the unemployed since March 15 is more than five times greater than Indiana’s total of about 105,000 people seeking jobs in February.

More than 30 million people across the country have now filed for unemployment since coronavirus closures started and economists have forecast that the national unemployment rate for April could go as high as 20%.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb has said he would announce changes Friday to the statewide stay-at-home order that has been in effect since March 25. Holcomb’s decisions are coming as health officials reported Indiana now has more than 1,000 people who have died with confirmed or likely coronavirus infections since the outbreak hit the state early last month.

But Indianapolis officials announced Thursday the city’s state-at-home order will continue until at least May 15, including a ban on dine-in service at restaurants and the closure of nonessential businesses such as movie theatres, fitness centres and hair salons.

“The challenges we face here in Indianapolis are unique — a city filled with large venues, densely populated neighbourhoods, and active business centres,” Mayor Joe Hogsett said. “To ensure that we see continued progress in our fight against this virus, we must recommit to our social distancing efforts even as we plan for the future.”