Thread by @EricBermanIN

.@GovHolcomb about to begin his daily #coronavirus briefing with @StateHealthIN Commissioner Kristina Box.

Spoke too soon. Dr. Box is absent today, due to what Holcomb says is "a non-COVID family emergency." Dan Rusyniak, chief medical officer for @FSSAIndiana, and FSSA Secretary @confectionsmd are filling in.

Rusyniak: 2,850 people have registered for @IUPUI #coronavirus study announced last week. Fairbanks School of Public Health hopes to test 5-7K in this phase, 20K by year's end. (Don't volunteer; they're contacting people selected to participate.)

ISDH #coronavirus dashboard will add weekly update on #longtermcare facility infections and deaths. It will NOT include staffers, because some work at more than one facility. 260 deaths so far in those facilities; that's 28% of Indiana's confirmed and presumptive death toll.

FSSA has set up 12 sites statewide for #homeless Hoosiers recovering from #coronavirus.

FSSA Secretary Sullivan: USDA is expanding food stamps to families not currently receiving benefits, but with children who were in free/reduced price lunch program and now can't go to school. Electronic benefit cards will be mailed to those families automatically.

Sullivan: FSSA working with daycare centers to help them stay open.

FSSA's childcare referral service is tracking which ones are still open and which are closed.

FSSA has also created a website, BeWellIndiana.org, to serve as a portal for #mentalhealth assistance during #pandemic.

Second straight briefing at which Holcomb has distributed cookies sent to his office by an Indiana bakery. Dr. Rusyniak gets the iced teddy bear wearing medical scrubs.

Holcomb with a LOT of "coming attractions": he'll talk tomorrow about progress on expanding testing, Wednesday on contact tracing. And, as we already knew, Friday will be an update of the statewide #stayhome order, which currently expires that day. He says there will be "edits."

Dept of Correction says 40 elderly patients have been transferred to the juvenile intake center at Logansport "for their own safety."

Holcomb: in weighing whether to loosen #coronavirus restrictions, key data points will be hospitalization rates, death rates, #PPE inventory, hospitals' capacity to handle patients. Will also look at regional variations, and businesses' plans for how they'd #reopen safely.

Sullivan: #hospitals in Cass County, and other counties, have excelled at planning for potential patient surge. So far, no county, including Cass, shows signs of overflowing hospitals' ability to house patients within the building.

Dept of Correction medical director Kristen Dauss: Indiana still doing only targeted testing of inmates (i.e., those with symptoms), not mass testing as Ohio has, due to limited resources.

Dauss: 80% of inmates tested had either no symptoms or "very mild" symptoms. 15% went to hospital, 5% to intensive care.