By TOM DAVIES Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana health officials are allowing schools across the state to relax their quarantine rules for students with coronavirus exposure even as they offer no timeline for when teachers could become eligible for COVID-19 vaccination shots.

The state health commissioner also announced Wednesday that the pandemic has been even deadlier than thought with an audit of death reports finding about 1,500 more coronavirus-related fatalities than previously recorded.

That will increase Indiana's COVID-19 death toll by 15% to almost 11,600 since March.

The new school recommendations allow schools to shorten current 14-day quarantines to seven days if the person exposed has a negative nasal swab test at least five days after exposure.