The spread of COVID-19 has coincided with an increase in people dying at home from apparently unrelated causes. During state officials’ COVID-19 briefing Wednesday, State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box said that Hoosiers seem to be more careful about going to the hospital.
“We’re not even seeing the same number of people that are showing up in our emergency rooms with heart attacks, strokes, and other things,” Box said. “In fact, what we’re seeing is an increase of individuals who are dying at home from things that look like heart attacks and other problems.”
Box urged residents who require immediate medical attention to call 911. “That’s what we’re there for,” she said. “That’s what we want to do. We don’t want people to die in increasing numbers in our state that is not related to COVID-19.”
When it comes to COVID-19, Box said she wants more people to get tested. “We want our providers that are seeing patients in their clinic, in the office, our providers that are seeing patients in emergency rooms and in med checks, we want individuals – if you think someone’s sick with COVID-19, especially if they have any of those higher-risk conditions, their age or high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, to please test them. We do have the ability to run more tests, and we want to do that.”
She noted that outside laboratories can now give test results more quickly, since they’ve been able to decrease their nationwide backlog.
