Officials add 21 more coronavirus deaths to Indiana’s toll

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana health officials on Tuesday added 21 more confirmed or presumed coronavirus-related deaths to the state’s toll as the rolling average of newly confirmed cases jumped closer to the state’s highest level seen in early August.

The newly recorded deaths raise the state’s death toll to 3,450, including confirmed and presumed coronavirus cases, since the state’s first such death was reported on March 15, according to the Indiana State Department of Health. Most of the new deaths occurred between Saturday and Monday.

The state’s seven-day average of new COVID-19 infections increased to 923 as of Monday, an increase of 20% from last week’s post-Labor Day weekend low when fewer people were tested. That average is just short of the daily average of 965 new cases that the state reached on Aug. 10.

Indiana officials have reported just over 107,000 coronavirus infections since the pandemic hit the state in March.

State statistics show that Indiana hospitals were treating 809 patients with the COVID-19 respiratory disease on Monday. That is down from the 987 hospitalized patients three weeks earlier, but still up about one-third from the state’s pandemic low of 595 patients in late June.

Those statistics listed 230 COVID-19 patients as being treated in Indiana’s intensive care units.