Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box today reported 79 presumptive positive COVID-19 deaths in Indiana, further adding to the number of residents who have died from the disease.
Presumptive positive deaths are deaths in which a physician listed COVID-19 as a contributing cause of death of a patient. The deaths are different from other reported deaths because no positive COVID-19 test was documented for the patients, and they occurred over a number of days.
According to state officials, an X-ray, CT scan and other diagnostic tools to provide enough evidence for a physician to provide a clinical diagnosis of COVID-19, even in the absence of a positive test.
On the state’s online dashboard, at coronavirus.in.gov, state officials plan to list presumptive positive deaths separately and not add them to the current cumulative COVID-19 death total. To date, the state has reported 741 cumulative COVID-19 deaths separate from the number of presumptive positive COVID-19 deaths.
To date, The Indiana Network for Patient Care’s research database has reported 9,402 distinct patients with COVID-19 positive tests since March 1, a conservative estimate that includes confirmed patients linked to hospital data. The number of distinct patients doesn’t include all positive tests reported to the Indiana State Dept. of Health.
Of the 9,402 patients, 3,709 visited an emergency department, 2,580 have been hospitalized and 539 have been admitted to an intensive care unit.
Of the 2,580 hospitalized, 1,706 have been discharged, a total of 80 percent – though, six percent are estimated to still be hospitalized, and 14 percent are estimated to have died from the disease.
