Columbus Regional Hospital has launched a triage resource call center for information on the coronavirus and COVID-19.
The call center is being staffed by trained nurses. If you have any questions about local exposure or symptoms, you can call the center at 812-379-4449.
CRH is asking those with concerns to use the call center first or to contact their doctor or physician’s office. If you are experiencing a true medical emergency you should call 911.
The best way to protect yourself or your loved ones is:
Avoiding large public gatherings, also being called social distancing.
Washing your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds and using alcohol-based sanitizer as a secondary option.
Cover coughs/sneezes with your arm or a tissue.
Not going in public if you are ill, especially if you have a fever.
Avoid touching your mouth, nose, or eyes.
Avoid exposure to others who are sick.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces
Columbus Regional Health and Schneck Medical Center are announcing new restrictions to protect their patients, public and staff from the coronavirus and the associated COVID-19 illness.
Effective Friday, Columbus Regional Hospital will be restricting public entrances at the 17th Street hospital campus. Those visiting the facility will be actively screened for the virus. If you are trying to visit the hospital, you are asked to enter either through the emergency department, which is entrance 1 off of 17th Street, or through entrance 2, which is off of 18th Street.
Effective Friday at Schneck Medical Center, every visitor and patient will be screened before entering the main hospital building. You should consider arriving early for any scheduled appointments. The hospital main entrance will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. Schneck Professional Building will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. The emergency department will remain open around the clock.
Schneck will be expanding current visitor restrictions, limiting visitors to two per patient. Visitors must be 18 years old and older and anyone with fever and/or chills, sore throat, muscle aches, runny or stuffy nose, cough, fatigue, headache, and vomiting and/or diarrhea is asked to refrain from visiting patients.
All visitors must wash their hands (soap and water) or use alcohol-based hand sanitizer before and after visiting a patient. Hand sanitizer can be found throughout the hospital as well as outside each patient’s room.
Schneck is also announcing that all support groups, seminars, and programs hosted at Schneck Medical Center are cancelled through March 31. In addition, the Live Well Expo scheduled for Saturday, April 4 has been postponed until further notice.
If you experience a fever with a cough or shortness of breath and have traveled to an area with an ongoing spread of COVID-19 or have had contact with someone suspected of having COVID-19 and suspect you may have COVID-19, you should contract the Indiana State Department of Health at 317-233-7125 (317-233-1325 after hours).
Simultaneously monitor your symptoms and seek medical attention if your condition worsens, especially if you have shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. Call ahead before visiting the doctor or a hospital so they can adequately prepare for your arrival. Tell them you may or may not have COVID-19.
Gov. Eric Holcomb announced additional steps the state is taking to reduce the spread of novel coronavirus COVID-19 in Indiana.
“This is a time when we must do all we can to reduce the spread of COVID-19, protect our most vulnerable populations and reduce their potential to acquire or spread this virus,” said Gov. Holcomb.
“While some actions are drastic, now, not later, is the time to act.”
Here are the actions Gov. Holcomb is initiating today.
Non-essential gatherings must be limited to no more than 250 people. This includes any event or gathering of people who are in one room or a single space at the same time, such as cafeterias, churches, stadiums, meeting and conference rooms, auditoriums and the like. This guidance applies to professional, social, community and similar other gatherings. Detailed guidance will be posted on the Indiana State Department of Health website by the end of the day.
Effective immediately, school corporations will be provided with a 20-day waiver of the required 180 instructional days for use as needed for the remainder of the academic year. The waived days do not need to be used consecutively and can be leveraged as needed.
If a school corporation has evidence of community spread or a confirmed positive test for coronavirus, officials should consult with the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana State Department of Health for additional steps. Schools should plan now for broader closures, including eLearning and remote classroom options.
The Department of Education will release additional guidance detailing the process for submitting waiver requests as early as Friday.
Schools should follow the guidelines for non-essential gatherings as they make decisions about non-essential extra-curricular or co-curricular activities.
Child care and adult day care facilities should institute social distancing and minimize large gatherings. Temporary suspension of operations should be done in consultation with the Family and Social Services and ISDH in the instance of documented community spread.
Nursing facilities and hospitals should restrict and screen visitors. Any individual who is allowed to visit is restricted to the patient’s room. Visitors are not allowed if they present with any of this criteria:
Display signs or symptoms of illness, especially respiratory illness
Have traveled internationally or been in contact with someone with a respiratory illness in the past 14 days
Reside in a community with a known COVID-19 case
Those who are less than 18 years of age
The Indiana Department of Correction has suspended visitation at all facilities as a precaution for the health and safety of IDOC staff and offenders.
Individuals over 60 years of age or those with a known underlying health issue such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes or chronic respiratory disease should limit their public exposure. Whenever possible, friends and family should arrange to provide food and other essential items.
Those who run senior centers and congregate meal services should consider suspending congregate meals services and arrange for home delivery
Encourage businesses to utilize telework policies, if available
Gov. Holcomb is also issuing guidance for state employee operations. The state will suspend all non-essential out-of-state and international travel beginning today and for the next 45 days. The state is also providing employees with guidance about the use of leave and remote work options for limited durations while ensuring the delivery of essential state services.
“I fully expect there will be additional actions warranted in the coming days,” Gov. Holcomb said. “Just as we have since the beginning of the year, we are working with partners at all levels to secure all necessary resources for any escalation of this virus.”
Columbus Police are asking any businesses or residents along State Street that have outside video surveillance footage from Feb. 26th to contact the department. Specifically they are looking for any video capturing roads or alleyways that night.
Police are looking for more information on the homicide of 37 year old Leonardo Rodriguez-Flores, of Columbus, whose body was found in a store parking lot in the 800 block of South Marr Road at about 11:15 p.m. the night of Feb. 26th. He had been shot in the head and killed.
Rodriguez-Flores’s vehicle, a silver 1998 Honda Civic, was found in a parking lot in the 2700 block of State Street.
If you have any video, or any other information, you can contact Detective Maren Crabtree at 812-376-2632. Tips or information can be left anonymously.
Donna Mitchell. Photo courtesy of Indiana State Police.
The Hope Police Department is asking residents to search their own properties for any clues into the month-long disappearance of a local woman.
57-year-old Donna Mitchell, was last seen the evening of Feb. 11th. Family members said that she was going to a friend’s house in Letts in Decatur County at the time of her disappearance. She is believed to be driving a maroon 2004 Chevrolet Trailblazer with Indiana license plate 902 QAK.
The police department investigation reveals she was last seen at about 8 p.m.that evening. She was caught on video walking out the door of the Brown Bottle Liquor store in Hartsville and has not been seen since.
The police department reports that they have searched every conceivable route between the two towns, including an aerial search by Indiana State Police.
Now they are asking property owners between Hartsville and Letts to search their properties for any clues that may have been missed. If you come across anything, no matter how insignificant, you should contact the Hope Police Department at 812-546-4015 or 911.
The Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce will be postponing its annual meeting due to virus concerns. Cindy Frey, president of the local chamber, announced this morning that the event will be rescheduled for May 15th.
She said the choice was made to delay “out of an abundance of caution and respect for members’ health.”
The lunchtime event was to have been held at The Commons on March 25the and normally has a crowd of 500 or more. Frey said there were already 430 tickets sold and those will be honored at the rescheduled event.
The Women in Leadership Lunch, which was originally scheduled for May 15 at The Commons, will be rescheduled for later this year.
Michael Schuette. Photo courtesy of Columbus Police Department
Columbus police say that a man was taken into custody by the SWAT team after barricading himself inside an apartment yesterday morning on Rosebud Drive.
Officers were called to the apartment at about 9:25 a.m. Wednesday morning on a reported disturbance. They found that 26-year-old Michael E. Schuette of Columbus was wanted on an outstanding warrant from Marion County. He was also possibly armed.
Police called in the joint city-county SWAT team and crisis negotiators who talked Schuette into surrendering.
During the incident, which lasted about 90 minutes, nearby Smith Elementary School was locked down and Waycross Drive was closed as a precaution.
In Bartholomew County, a coalition of city, county, business and health officials are monitoring the spread of the coronavirus in an effort to keep the community informed and protected from the disease.
Kelsey DeClue, spokeswoman for Columbus Regional Health explains that the Community COVID-19 Coalition formed a few weeks ago. It is an integrated approach to share information, communication methods and that everyone is on the same page to share those preparations with the community.
Organizations taking part include Columbus Regional Health, the Columbus Mayor’s Office, Bartholomew County Health Department, Bartholomew County Emergency Management, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp., Cummins Inc., Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce, Columbus Area Economic Development and Bartholomew County Commissioners.
DeClue explains that the goal is to scale up from preparedness and awareness to an actual response when the virus appears here. DeClue said at this point there have been no instances in Bartholomew County, although three tests were positive yesterday in Johnson County.
“It is important that the community to remember that as of right now, now this situation is constantly evolving, but we are in that preparation and planning mode,” she said. “The importance of not panicking unnecessarily but remaining calm and focusing on what the community can do to prepare and what you can do to prepare personally to stay safe, is kind of our main focus right now.”
To continue to be safe, DeClue said we should all be taking common sense precautions such as rigorous hand-washing, covering your mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze, cutting down on crowded social situations and sanitizing possibly contaminated surfaces.
“I think it is just that cautious preparedness,” she said. “I think understanding that spring break is coming up, we are going to have a lot of travel. Understanding that while there is still a travel component to COVID-19, it has also been identified as what is called a community spread virus, so travel isn’t necessarily a deciding factor on whether or not you can be exposed to this.”
People should also keep in mind that so far the illness has been very mild in about 80 percent of the cases. But there are groups at greater risk, DeClue said.
“Those with kind of depressed immune systems, are a little bit more of high risk as they would be for the flu or any kind of season illness like this, that need to be on higher alert,” she said.
INDOT says that work will be starting on Monday on a State Road 46 bridge project in Brown County. The $1.5 million project will improve two bridges over North Fork Salt Creek, east of Nashville.
You will see the area east of the State Road 135 junction in Nashville and east of Parkview Road reduced to one lane starting Monday with a temporary traffic signal in place until August. Crews will be replacing the bridge deck and widening that bridge.
After that portion of the project is completed, the work will move to the bridge west of Parkview Road. Crews will be resurfacing that bridge.
