INDIANAPOLIS — Sunday's latest updates on the coronavirus pandemic.
New Pal H.S. football coach cancels opening game due to quarantined players
New Palestine High School's head football coach Kyle Ralph put out a statement on Twitter Sunday to announce that the team's opening game against Decatur Central has been canceled.
"At this time due to the volume of quarantined players & their unavailability it has been decided the overall safety & well being of our players, which is our top priority, does not meet the standards of fielding a team this week," Ralph wrote.
Ralph says they will continue to work and try to practice and hopes they can get back to the game on Aug. 28.
ISDH reports 750 new cases, 3 additional deaths
The Indiana State Department of Health announced 750 new positive cases of COVID-19 Sunday that were reported to the state on Friday and Saturday. Indiana now has 80,415 confirmed positive cases since the pandemic began.
Three new deaths reported Sunday occurred this week, which brings the state's mortality total to 2,924.
More than 900,000 people have been tested, and just under 9 percent are coming back positive as of Sunday.
Ample hospital care remains available for the most serious cases, with more than 35 percent of ICU beds and nearly 82 percent of ventilators available across the state.
Maconaquah High School goes to remote learning Monday after positive cases
Five members of the same family have tested positive for COVID-19, prompting Maconaquah Schools to move all high school students to remote learning on Monday and put athletics on hold for 10 days.
In a Facebook post, the corporation announced three high school students and a person who works in food service at the high school tested positive. The fifth positive case is a "middle school participant."
The middle and elementary schools will continue in-person classes.
Contact tracing was done in consultation with the Miami County Health Department. Families will be contacted by the health department if they have been exposed.
Latest US, world numbers
There have been 5.36 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. as of 5:30 a.m. ET Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University. There have been more than 169,400 deaths and 1.81 million people recovered.
Worldwide, there have been 21.4 million confirmed cases with more than 771,200 deaths and 13.45 million recoveries.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.
Dr. Birx urges rural mask wearing in Kansas
President Trump’s top coronavirus adviser used a visit to Kansas to urge people to wear masks regardless of where they live.
“What’s really important for every Kansan to understand is that this epidemic that we have been seeing this summer is both urban and rural,” Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force said Saturday. “So we are really asking all communities, whether you are urban or rural communities, to really wear a mask inside, outside, every day.”
She also stressed that people should socially distance and not have gatherings while in Kansas City, Kansas, for a meeting with Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, as well as community and state health officials at KU Medical Center, The Kansas City Star reports.
“You can’t tell who’s infected,” Birx said. “Much of the spread is asymptomatic. I know we all want to believe that our family members cannot be positive. They are.”
Birx said when communities start seeing a rise in positive cases, leaders need to close the bars, restrict indoor dining, decrease social gatherings and ensure there’s a mask mandate.
“We have been doing that across the South and we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in cases where the population has followed those guidelines,” she said.
Cases up in S. Korea, New Zealand
South Korea has reported 279 newly confirmed cases of the coronavirus, it’s highest daily jump since early March, as fears grow about a massive outbreak in the greater capital region.
The figures released by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Sunday brought the national caseload to 15,318, including 305 deaths.
The number of new cases was the highest since 367 were reported on March 8, when the country was concentrating public health tools and personnel nationwide to combat an outbreak in the less populated southern region.
Health authorities reported 13 new cases of the coronavirus in New Zealand on Sunday, including 12 linked to an outbreak in the city of Auckland and one returning traveler who was already in quarantine.
The outbreak in Auckland, discovered Tuesday, has prompted officials to put the nation’s largest city back into a two-week lockdown.
The outbreak has now grown to 49 infections, with authorities saying they believe all the cases are all connected, giving them hope the virus isn’t spreading beyond that cluster.
New Zealand had gone 102 days without community spread of the disease before the latest outbreak. Officials believe the virus was reintroduced to New Zealand from abroad but haven’t yet been able to figure out how it happened.