Is Indiana ready for omicron? One epidemiologist said the public health system is ready for the latest COVID-19 variant – but still needs Hoosiers’ help by getting vaccinated.

Families with loved ones in facilities for the developmentally disabled are especially eager to spend the holidays together. But as the pandemic continues, they face new uncertainty and continuing lockdowns even as the rest of the country tries to get back to normal.

Gov. Eric Holcomb has already laid out the technical side to ending the public health emergency. There are only three legislative changes he needs lawmakers to make to ensure Indiana won’t lose hundreds of millions in federal funding tied to the pandemic.

The struggle to find workers may have reached all the way to the North Pole as shopping mall Santas say they’re seeing increased demand this year as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is keeping some of Santa’s helpers on the labor market sidelines.

Gov. Eric Holcomb is encouraging Hoosiers to get vaccinated amid reports COVID-19’s highly contagious omicron variant has been detected in Indiana.

Indiana reports its first case of the COVID-19 variant omicron. Epidemiologists and hospitals sound the alarm as hospitalizations rise across the state. And Hoosiers testify on the House Republican bill that would effectively ban employer vaccine mandates.

Epidemiologists are preaching caution ahead of end-of-year winter holidays. This comes as the state reports high COVID-19 transmission, overwhelmed hospitals and its first case of omicron.

Over the weekend, health officials in Indiana confirmed the first case of the omicron variant in the state. The arrival of the highly infectious variant – now identified in at least 45 states – comes when hospitals across Indiana are already facing critical shortages.

The Indiana Department of Health announced Sunday that the omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus was detected in the state.

Jake West collapsed during high school football practice in Indiana and died of sudden cardiac arrest in 2013. A video widely shared online falsely suggests COVID-19 vaccination is to blame, weaving headlines about him into a rapid-fire compilation of news coverage about athletes collapsing.