Brown County is reporting a third of the deaths from COVID-19 in the state, according to Sunday figures from the Indiana State Department of Health. Indiana had 18 deaths added to its tally on Sunday, and Brown County reported six of those.

The deaths in Indiana reported on Sunday dated from last Wednesday to Saturday. So far, 8,613 people in Indiana have died from the disease since the first Hoosier COVID-19 death last March.

Johnson County had a single death reported yesterday, the only other county in our area with a death.

Brown, Johnson and Shelby counties are all still under the red advisory level on the state’s color-coded map, showing severe spread of the disease. Bartholomew, Decatur, Jennings and Jackson counties are orange, showing a serious spread of the disease.

Jennings County deputies arrested two people who allegedly invaded a home Saturday in Country Squire Lakes.

Residents returned to a home on Langston Way at about 11 a.m.

Saturday morning and found a man and woman who they didn’t know inside the residence and the family’s belongings had been rifled through. Before deputies could arrive, the two people took off. But with a detailed description of the suspects, deputies soon located 29-year-old Dustin Decker and 27-year-old Keisha Philpot walking nearby, who matched the description.

They were both arrested on felony charges of residential entry, while Decker is also facing charges of possessing methamphetamine and a syringe.

Vice President Mike Pence is not on board with removing President Trump from office under the constitution, according to news reports.

The New York Times reports Pence is against invoking the 25th Amendment with Joe Biden’s inauguration less than two weeks away. That decision is also reportedly supported by several other members of Trump’s Cabinet, as the President-elect will take office on January 20th. Calls for the 25th Amendment intervention started after Wednesday’s U.S. Capitol building protests.

Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma says that the vice president is furious at President Trump after the protests on Capitol Hill. Inhofe, who says he’s known Pence forever, has never seen him as angry as he was Wednesday. This comes after Trump effectively made the VP a target of angry crowds for his decision not to challenge Electoral College votes to turn the election. After Pence’s refusal to throw out Electoral College votes cast for President-elect Joe Biden, the president tweeted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.”

Columbus Regional Health will begin vaccinating anyone who is 80 or older for COVID-19, starting today. According to the hospital, that is the the latest population identified as eligible by the Indiana State Department of Health

Vaccinations also continue for healthcare personnel at CRH.

All vaccinations conducted by CRH are taking place at the standalone vaccination clinic on Keller Avenue, just west of the hospital campus.

Those who are eligible can begin finding and scheduling appointments through the state website at www.ourshot.in.gov starting at 9 a.m. this morning.

You can get more information at crh.org/vaccine, but all registrations must be made through the state site.

Columbus Congressman Greg Pence is explaining his votes in the Electoral College tally Wednesday night and early Thursday morning.

Pence, a Republican and the brother of Vice-President Mike Pence, voted against excluding counting Arizona’s Electoral College results, but was in favor of excluding Pennsylvania’s tally according to congressional records.

Pence said in a Thursday afternoon statement that his votes reflected his support of the Constitution and for the “the disenfranchised voters of the 6th District who feel this election process was intentionally altered for political reasons. This was not what the Founding Fathers intended and it was wrong.”

However Pence said that despite millions of Americans feeling disenfranchised, violence and anarchy is never the answer. Instead, he said “the way forward for our nation is to follow the U.S. Constitution.”

Both measures to exclude ballots failed in the Democrat-controlled House.

Brown County is showing 16 new deaths from COVID-19 in the Indiana State Department of Health daily update on the pandemic and the county is the only one in the state to be flagged for having a large number of its cases attributable to congregate settings.

Congregate settings are locations where people live, meet or gather in close proximity and can include homeless shelters, group homes, prisons, detention centers, schools and workplaces.

Brown County Schools Superintendent Laura Hammack announced last night that a staff member at Helmsburg Elementary School had tested positive for COVID-19 and that the close contacts identified with that person pushed the school past 20 percent of the building population needing to be absent from the building. That requires Helmsburg Elementary to move to the red advisory level, or remote instruction for all students through at least Jan. 12th.

The school district’s goal is to move Helmsburg Elementary back to the green level on Jan. 13th, but that could be extended if more cases are found.

Jackson and Johnson counties are the only other area counties to report deaths from the disease, each with one new death reported in yesterday’s update.

In our area, Brown, Johnson and Shelby counties are all at the red advisory level showing severe spread of the disease. Bartholomew, Decatur, Jennings and Jackson counties are all at the orange level, showing serious spread of the disease.

A downtown Columbus home suffered about $48,000 in damages after a fire Tuesday night — the first home fire of the new year.

Capt. Mike Wilson, spokesman for the fire department, says that firefighters were called to the 500 block of North Cherry Street at 10:24 Tuesday evening. When they got to the scene, flames were coming from the rear of the home. Firefighters entered the front of the home and ran into high heat and heavy smoke.

Six fire trucks worked at the scene to knock down the blaze, which appeared to start near the garage at the back of the home, before spreading to the home itself.

The intense heat also threatened a nearby home, melting its vinyl siding but firefighters used a stream of water to protect that building.

It took about 35 minutes to get the fire under control. No one was injured and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Photo courtesy of Columbus Fire Department