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Indiana's COVID-19 death toll of 21,079 is larger than the population of 25 counties.
(Lauren Chapman/IPB News)Indiana added 1,000 new confirmed COVID-19 deaths to its total in just two weeks, pushing the state past another milestone: 21,000 dead.
With updated data Tuesday, the Indiana Department of Health brought its confirmed COVID-19 deaths total to 21,079. For context, that’s larger than the population of 25 counties in Indiana.
State health officials say there are an additional 832 suspected COVID-19 deaths – where a test wasn’t administered but health care professionals believe the person had the virus.
Deaths in the state peaked at an average of 98 per day in December 2020. But deaths plummeted in summer 2021 to seven deaths per day.
After a brief reprieve from the state’s late-summer delta surge, November 2021’s average was 28.9 deaths per day. December 2021 climbed to 55.5. January, so far, stands at 63.1 deaths per day – a number which is still growing as it takes a little longer to report confirmed deaths.
January 2022 also reported two days with more than 80 confirmed deaths. Single-day death totals had not been that high for a year.
The first week of February has reported 184 deaths with an average of 26.2 per day. But it’s important to note: it takes longer to report deaths, so this may or may not actually indicate deaths are declining.
READ MORE: What the latest COVID-19 data means for you
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These deaths still trend younger than earlier in the pandemic. Before August, fewer than 3 percent of deaths were Hoosiers younger than 50. But since then, that has grown to nearly 9 percent.
Three counties – Benton, Spencer and Ohio – reported no deaths. Both Marion and Lake counties reported more than 100.
IDOH has added 392 new deaths to its total in the last week.
Contact Lauren at lchapman@wfyi.org or follow her on Twitter at @laurenechapman_.
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