FARMERSBURG, Ind.(WTWO/WAWV)– There are now three confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the Wabash Valley area.
Two of those cases are in Vigo Co., after the second case was confirmed late last night by the Vigo Co. Health Department.
The other confirmed case was found in Greene Co.
Both Vigo Co. patients are being self-quarantined. According to Greene Co. health officials they are not allowed to release any information regarding their patient’s status.
Health officials said as more coronavirus test kits become available, we can expect the number of positive cases to increase.
Roni Elder, Vigo Co. Health Educator, said when a patient tests positive, a community exposure process is conducted so that others can be made aware of possible exposure.
“They will let us know where they’ve been and who they’ve been around. Then we contact them from the health department and let them know that they might have been exposed and what steps they need to take from there,” she said.
Brenda Reetz, Greene Co. Hospital CEO, said it’s imperative that preventative measures are put in place to limit exposure to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
“If you can keep yourself from getting sick, that is the absolute best thing that we can do right now. If everyone gets sick from this at once, we won’t have the availability of health care resources,” Reetz said.
According to health leaders, strict criteria must be met for testing to be conducted as directed by the Indiana State Department of Health.
At-risk health care workers and patients who are critically ill will receive first priority for testing.
Reetz said as more testing becomes available, hospitals will still face a shortage of hospital supplies needed to conduct these tests.
“In the next week, there’s this significant increase in capability with some of the national reference labs, such as Quest and Labcorp,” she said. “They’re increasing the amount of tests they can do per day. But that doesn’t necessarily increase the availability of the testing supplies.”
Elder believes once testing becomes widespread, there will be better outcomes on both national and local levels.
“As we test more and more people and there’s more positives more people are going to recover from it,” she said. “Hopefully all the people we’ve had in our county, so far the two cases, will see a recovery rate from that. Hopefully that will start to ease people’s minds, that this is something to worry about. But hopefully we’ll see good outcomes from it.”
