LOUISVILLE, Ky. — When judging the rate of COVID-19 spread in local communities, experts watch case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths. Researchers say they come in that order.
Hospitalizations continue to be a key indicator of what the virus looks like in our communities. Officials watch the numbers to ensure we stay below health care system capacity, while researchers want to see how the virus is progressing.
Here is a look at Indiana.
In Indiana, the number of COVID patients in ICU beds is still down from April but slightly up in the last two weeks.
Ventilator usage tilting up as well.
At its worst, about 52% of patients testing positive were hospitalized. Now, the latest data tells us that number is down to 15%.
Including all the patients needed to be treated in the ICU for illnesses other than coronavirus, there are currently 790 ICU beds, about 32%, available to treat patients.
More good news, 2,569 ventilators are open which leaves about 84% available.
A few more statistics we thought were worth sharing, according to the Regenstrief Institute:
- about 3% of those positive need ICU treatment
- about 21% of those positive are hospitalized according to most current data
- about 76% of Hoosiers recover
- about 19% of those hospitalized die
Now, let's a check-in with Kentucky hospitalization rates.
We don't have the same kind of access to data in the Commonwealth, but we can tell you hospitalizations were down from May to June and are now creeping back up.
Theoretically, cases go up, hospitalizations increase and then we see the high death rates.
Right now, we are still in the first stages with cases going up. We are still about three weeks out from seeing hospitalization rates follow that trend.
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