INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana reported more than 3,000 new coronavirus cases for a third straight day Saturday as the state’s new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continued to surge.
The Indiana State Department of Health also reported 46 newly recorded COVID-19 deaths, raising the state’s pandemic death toll to 4,332, including confirmed and presumed coronavirus infections.
The 3,505 new infections reported Saturday came two days after the state agency reported 3,649 new infections. Those cases reported Thursday set a daily high of newly reported cases of COVID-19 and were the first time Indiana had recorded more than 3,000 positive coronavirus cases in one day. The state recorded 3,205 new infections Friday.
Indiana’s seven-day rolling average for newly confirmed cases rose to 2,714, according to the health department’s daily update Saturday of its coronavirus dashboard. That is the highest level the state has seen during the pandemic and more than triple the seven-day rolling average of 858 newly confirmed cases the agency reported on Sept. 22.
Hospitalizations have grown since Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb announced on Sept. 23 his decision to lift nearly all of Indiana’s COVID-19 restrictions while extending the statewide mask mandate.
Holcomb late Friday afternoon issued an executive order extending the state’s public health emergency that was due to expire Sunday for another 30 days. It the eighth extension of the emergency over the outbreak that he originally declared in March.
To date, nearly 1.7 million people have been tested for COVID-19 in Indiana, and a total of 179,358 Hoosiers are known to have had the virus.
