Governor Holcomb's Plan for Getting Indiana 'Back on Track'

After teasing the announcement earlier this week, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb stepped behind the podium for his daily COVID-19 update Friday afternoon and laid out his entire plan for slowly reopening the state after a nearly six week stay at home order.

The Governor calls the five-phase plan, "Back on Track Indiana," and stressed it was based on, and will continue to rely on, data to guide the "sector by sector reset." The plan will rely on the following "four guiding principals":

Monitor the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
- Current data shows the number of admissions has decreased across the state the past two weeks.
Retain the capacity to treat a surge of patients.
- Currently statewide ICU bed and ventilator availability has remained above 40% and 70% for the past two weeks.
Have the ability to test all Hoosiers who are COVID-19 symptomatic
- The state retains the ability to test all Hoosiers who are COVID-19 symptomatic, as well as healthcare workers, essential workers, first responders, and others as delineated on the ISDH website.
Have the ability to trace all cases
- Health officials have systems in place to contact all individuals
  who test positive for COVID-19 and complete contact tracing.

Holcomb said given that all four principals are heading in the right direction, the administration is ready to begin the process of reopening business across the state with the goal being to have the entire state "back on track" by July 4th.

Here's how each phase breaks down:

Stage 1

This is the stage the entire state has been under since the Governor's stay at home order took effect March 24th. It ends tonight (May 1st, 2020) at 11:59 p.m.

The Governor stressed in his press conference that in order to achieve a full reopen by July 4th, each and every Hoosier must stay constantly vigilant and abide by any and all safety measure in place as restrictions are eased. He followed that by stating if we cannot continue to meet the four guiding principals resulting in an increase in cases, "all or portions of the state may need to pause, or even return to an earlier phase of our stay at home order." You can watch the Governor's complete press conference below.

[Source: backontrack.in.gov / Governor Eric Holcomb on Facebook]