HIV in the official record only — and COVID-19 in three parts

BRANCH · EPIDEMICS & PUBLIC HEALTH · HIV: Indiana Spotlight surveillance, to 31 Dec. 2024 · COVID-19: county course, orders and vaccination campaign, 2020–2022

Lead: Two modern epidemics, told strictly from the official record: HIV as the state surveillance system publishes it, county by county and with small numbers suppressed — and COVID-19 as the county health department itself dated, ordered, counted and vaccinated it.

HIV, state surveillance at county grain. Indiana law (IC 16-41-2-1) makes every HIV/AIDS case reportable, including progression from HIV to AIDS and the death of a person with HIV; the Indiana Department of Health's Spotlight on HIV, STI & Viral Hepatitis annual surveillance report is the official telling. Its 2024 report (data to 31 December 2024) records statewide: 556 new reports of HIV at first diagnosis and 108 of AIDS at first diagnosis in 2024; 8,224 persons living with HIV (without an AIDS diagnosis) and 6,717 living with AIDS — 14,941 persons living with HIV disease in Indiana; and 8,402 deaths among persons with HIV disease reported since 1981. St. Joseph County appears, as every county does, on the report's two county maps — deaths reported by county, and persons living with HIV disease by last known county of residence — with counts under five suppressed for confidentiality. The county's living-with-HIV figure is carried on that map graphic; its text layer did not yield the St. Joseph cell unambiguously, and no figure is printed here rather than risk printing a neighbouring county's number as this county's. That restraint is the finding's shape: at official grain, HIV in this county is a mapped, suppressed-small-cell entry inside a state system — present in the record every year, never narrated, and deliberately not counted out loud below the state's own threshold. (Settler for the exact county cell: the Spotlight map read visually, or an IDOH data request to the Surveillance Director the report itself names.)

COVID-19 (a) — the county's course and toll, dated. The county department's own releases fix the early curve: 811 confirmed cases and 31 deaths on 11 May 2020; 1,083 cases, 37 deaths on 22 May; 1,852 cases, 77 deaths on 2 July; and, via the state dashboard the Chamber relayed, 12,798 cases and 190 deaths on 11 November 2020. The department's weekly summaries then give: 27,993 cases and 422 resident deaths at 28 January 2021; 31,003 cases and 522 resident deaths at 11 March 2021 (the death figure footnoted as reconciling an IDOH backlog); 32,807 cases and 534 resident deaths at 1 April 2021. The department's later annual accounting conflicts with simple cumulation and is printed unmerged: its 2021 Annual Snapshot reports, for calendar 2021, 32,513 cases and “Deaths 288,” while its 2023 annual report's communicable-disease table counts 17,420 confirmed COVID cases in calendar 2022 (and 22,142 in 2021 — a third 2021 figure). A single final 2020–22 county toll therefore cannot be honestly struck from the department's own publications as read; what is solid is the dated ladder above, and USAFacts' state-aggregated county total of 70,600 reported cases for January 2020 – July 2023. Olive Township's share was never published at township grain.

(b) — the public-health orders, dated. Health Officer Robert M. Einterz, MD, acting under IC 16-20-1 and IC 16-41-9, issued Public Health Order 1-2020 on 3 May 2020, effective 4 May 2020 at 11:59 p.m. to 4 July: alcohol-based hand sanitiser (at least 60%) at the entrance of every business open to customers, and a face covering over nose and mouth for every person entering an enclosed public space or place of business, medical exceptions aside, worn whenever six feet of distance could not be maintained. Order 2-2020 (issued 29 June 2020) extended the regime from 4 July to 7 September 2020. Order 3-2020 (issued 4 September 2020) ran 8 September to 31 December 2020, tightening the covering's fit (“snugly against the sides of one's face”) and excepting children five and under, among others. The county thus kept its own mask law in force months on its own authority, before and alongside the state's — the 1881 machinery, working as designed, in the county's own hand.

(c) — the vaccination campaign, dated. First doses administered to county residents stood at 35,081 by 18 February 2021 (county summary). The campaign's set piece was the state-county mass clinic at Notre Dame's Compton Family Ice Arena, 26–27 March 2021, 8 a.m.–8 p.m., run by the Indiana Department of Health with the county department and the National Guard: the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, capacity 5,760, appointments fully booked — Notre Dame's own magazine says “nearly 6,000” received it; the county-university releases round the two days at approximately 4,500 residents vaccinated, a second figure that may count a different clinic day or series; both print unmerged. Eligibility opened to all Hoosiers 16 and older on 31 March 2021. In October 2021 the department and Notre Dame jointly offered two complimentary football tickets (Navy, 6 Nov., or Georgia Tech, 20 Nov.) to any resident taking a first dose at the County-City Building clinic, 227 W. Jefferson Blvd. — the campaign's measure of how the work had changed, from mass lines to inducements. Neighbourhood clinics followed (Robinson Community Learning Center, 11 December 2021 — 130-plus vaccinated, ages 5 and up — and 29 January 2022, first, second and booster doses). The department's 2023 report counts its own immunisation work, COVID doses included, at 89,855 doses in 2021 and 12,335 in 2022 — the campaign's long tail, in the office's own hand.

Sources:

1. Indiana Department of Health, Spotlight on HIV, STI & Viral Hepatitis: Indiana Annual 2024 Surveillance Report (June 2025) — at-a-glance statewide figures, reporting law, county maps and suppression rule (in.gov/health).
2. St. Joseph County Department of Health, COVID-19 case-update releases, 11 May, 22 May, 26 May, 1–2 July, 5 & 12 & 19 June 2020 (in.gov/localhealth) — the early case and death ladder.
3. St. Joseph County Department of Health, Public Health Orders 1-2020 (3 May 2020), 2-2020 (29 June 2020), 3-2020 (4 Sept. 2020) — full texts (in.gov/localhealth); Barnes & Thornburg and Taft law bulletins for the orders' sequence.
4. St. Joseph County Department of Health, COVID-19 Data Summaries, 28 Jan., 11 Mar., 1 Apr. 2021; Annual Snapshot 2021; Annual Report 2023 (communicable-disease table; immunisation totals) — dated tolls and the conflicting annual figures, printed unmerged.
5. Notre Dame News / NDWorks / Notre Dame Magazine (Mar.–Oct. 2021; Dec. 2021) — the Compton mass clinic, eligibility dates, the ticket incentive, the Robinson Center clinics; South Bend Regional Chamber COVID resource page (11 Nov. 2020 dashboard figures); USAFacts county aggregation (70,600 cases, Jan. 2020 – July 2023).