Indiana National Guard called up to give pandemic help to long-term care facilities

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Gov. Eric Holcomb in Wednesday’s coronavirus briefing announced new steps to support and protect people in long-term care facilities during the coronavirus pandemic.

One of the ways he’ll do that is with the help of the Indiana National Guard.

He said, “Over the next couple weeks, we’ll take additional steps to directly support and further partner with these facilities, starting with utilizing members of the Indiana National Guard who will work side by side staff members and help them with screening employees and data entry and testing and infection control practices and so much more so that the facility staff members can rightly focus on what they do best, and that’s caring directly for the residents.”

Holcomb says they’ll start these extra measures with facilities that have had registered outbreaks. But by “outbreak,” he means just a single case. Indiana has more than 500 nursing homes and, eventually, all will get some help.

“The pandemic has taken a toll as I just mentioned on all of us. It’s taken a real toll on the residents and the staff and their families,” Holcomb said.

Nursing homes have seen more than 58% of all pandemic-related deaths. That’s more than 2,200 deaths and rising.

But, Holcomb said, work done at the nursing homes will help everyone as the hospitalization rate has risen in just a few weeks and now stands at a level not seen since early May.

“If we can prevent infections in our nursing homes, we will protect our hospital capacity and, in turn, our capacity to care,” Holcomb said.

That’s one of the four key metrics for keeping the state open.

That’s not all that was announced Wednesday.

The state is tapping into its Reserve Workforce to hire people who have already volunteered to work and help out. Many of them are retired health care workers. After two months of getting no requests from facilities, the state this week received 11 requests for extra help.

The state is also providing 400,000 face shields and 680,000 gowns as well as 2 million N-95 masks to Indiana nursing homes so all staff who work with patients can wear one.

But as the state rises to a seven-day positivity rate of 6.9%, Holcomb strongly resisted any call to rollback restrictions.

He said, from the spring to now, there are key differences including much great knowledge of the virus, how it spreads, how to protect people, and developed networks for contact tracing, testing capacity and personal protective equipment.

Whatever reopening stage the state is under, he said it’s up to people follow guidelines to wear mask and do socially distancing.

“Whether it’s making cars or going to a Colts game or going to school, there are safe ways to be in Stage 5 and we’re proving it all over the state of Indiana,” Holcomb said.

The National Guard will begin its efforts Nov. 1 and continue at least through the end of the year.

State Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box joined in the briefing via phone. She said she developed symptoms late last week and later tested positive for COVID-19. She said she is doing better and plans to be back to work next week.

The governor also announced Wednesday that he will not be hosting the night of trick-or-treating at the Governor’s Residence on North Meridian Street as he usually does every year.

See the governor’s briefing below. App users can go online to view the video.