This is the WFHB Local News for Monday, August 3rd, 2020.

Later in the program, Pam Raider of the Brown County Hour, interviews participants at the Solidarity Rally in Nashville earlier this summer. That’s coming up in today’s feature report.

Also coming up in the next half hour, a Few Minutes with the Mayor – our weekly segment featuring an interview with Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton about local issues.

But first, your local headlines.

Here are three things you need to know today. WFHB Correspondent Aaron Comforty filed Monday’s local news brief.

581 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Indiana on Sunday, according to the Indiana State Department of Health, which also reported three new deaths related to COVID-19. Sunday’s numbers show a 40 percent drop in new cases since Friday. But according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the drop may be less about an actual drop in cases, and more about reduced weekend testing and reporting. Locally, Monroe County saw two new confirmed cases yesterday, while Lawrence County saw one.

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In-person classes begin in three weeks at the Indiana University campus in Bloomington.

At a virtual question and answer session on Friday, university medical officials presented the school’s Covid-19 reopening plans for faculty and staff. Dr. Cole Beeler, Director of Infection Prevention, noted that all of the university’s health safety protocols would not be enough to stop new infections.

Dr. Aaron Carroll, the Director of Surveillance and Mitigation for the COVID Pandemic stressed that the university is attempting to test students before they come to live in the dorms, then retested, ideally, every week or two. Dr. Carroll noted that students who test positive cannot live in the dorms.

Prominent universities across the U.S. are choosing different reopening tactics. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education and Davidson University’s research partnership, Harvard, Swarthmore, and the California University System have elected to open one hundred percent online. On the other hand, Yale and Stanford have elected to reopen primarily in-person.

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Meanwhile the Monroe County Schools open up in-person classes on August 12th. This comes after the New York Times reported last week that within hours of the season’s first day of in-person classes at a middle school in Hancock County Indiana, a student tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

 

Bicentennial Professor of Pediatrics at Indiana University Aaron Carroll said all Indiana University students living on campus will be tested for COVID-19 upon arrival, during a July 31st COVID Press Conference. He said off campus students will also be tested.

Carroll said IU will perform regular surveillance testing. He said local testing sites in Bloomington and Indianapolis will perform up to 10 thousand surveillance tests per day on IU faculty and students.

He said IU is hiring a team of 30 to 60 contact tracers and creating quarantine housing areas for students.

Also during the meeting,

Monroe County Health Department Public Information Officer Cathy Huett said on Thursday July 30th, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb released two new executive orders.

Huett said the OptumServe testing site has done over 400 tests in one day however, the site is not permanent. She said the site will be up through August, and the Monroe County Health Department, County and City government, and IU Health Bloomington Hospital are working to create a plan for a new testing site. She also said new gathering size limits are now in effect.

Huett said a health order compliance complaint form can be found on the Monroe County website. Regional Director of Alignment and Integration for Indiana University Health Mary Ann Valenta said the Bloomington hospital is seeing a surge. She said semi-private rooms restrict bed availability.