(BLOOMINGTON, Ind.) –One of Indiana’s local coronavirus restrictions is being extended another week, while another is coming to an end.
Gary Mayor Jerome Prince says he’s leaving a stay-home order in place until May 22, with restaurants, stores and personal-service businesses remaining closed until two days later, May 24. Nearly one-fifth of Lake County’s 2,700 coronavirus cases are in Gary, one of the highest infection rates in the state.
City health department director Roland Walker says the city was continuing to add double-digit cases until Thursday, and says Thursday’s drop is the result of a brief shortage of testing supplies.
Prince says he’s as eager as everyone else to start getting back to normal, but says with infection rates still high, it’s better to remain cautious. He says when stores and restaurants do reopen, they’ll be limited to one-quarter of their normal capacity, at the same time the rest of the state is ramping up to three-quarters capacity.
While Gary is keeping limits in place, Monroe County plans to start lifting restrictions Saturday, 12 days after most of the state. Monroe County Health Department administrator Penny Caudill says the county held off until now because it wanted to see more evidence of a steady decline in cases, and wider availability of testing. There are now three testing sites in Bloomington, and Caudill says the county is also one of the first areas where the state is expanding contact tracing of patients diagnosed with the virus.
Monroe County has had 144 coronavirus cases, one-seventh the rate in Gary. Nine county residents have died.
For now, the county is aligning with state orders on who can stay open to what extent, including following the state’s exemption of houses of worship from a cap on mass gatherings. But the county is “strongly encouraging” churches to hold off resuming services till June 1. And while the state hopes to relax restrictions further next weekend, the county will wait an extra week. Caudill says the county wants to have a full two weeks to review each stage of reopening.
The Monroe County measures leave Gary and Cass County as the only parts of the state still under full stay-at-home orders. Cass County is scheduled to allow stores to reopen Monday, with restaurants and personal-service businesses to follow a week later. An outbreak at the Tyson pork plant in Logansport made Cass County one of the worst hotspots in the nation, but state health commissioner Kristina Box says the county has passed the peak of its outbreak, with only a couple of new cases a day.
Marion County is relaxing restrictions Friday but not going quite as far as the state, with indoor dining still banned at restaurants, personal-service businesses still closed, and religious services still subject to a 25-person cap.
