COVID-19 cases on the rise Allen County amid BA.5 variant

ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. (WPTA) - New COVID-19 cases in Allen County are on the rise as the BA.5 variant spreads across the United States.

On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the rapidly-spreading BA.5 variant is now causing about 80% of new COVID-19 infections in the U.S. The CDC says the number of reinfections has almost doubled compared to previous waves.

In the county’s weekly COVID-19 report, the Allen County Department of Health says 949 residents tested positive for the virus. Just last week, the number of new cases was 568--up from 468 on June 24. The new data brings the county’s total case count to 110,565 cases and 1,168 deaths.

Even though there has been a spike in new cases, the newly-appointed health commissioner Dr. Thomas Gutwein says we’re moving out of the pandemic stage of COVID-19 and into the endemic stage. However, he says it doesn’t mean the virus won’t still impact day-to-day life.

“We haven’t had any significant rise in hospitalizations and deaths recently,” Dr. Gutwein said. “But what it will do is impact everybody as we do to work and it’s going to take them out of the workforce at a given time and it’s going to continue to cause people to feel ill but it’s not going to cause the significant problems that we’ve had.”