INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s governor announced Wednesday that some coronavirus restrictions are being reinstated after several weeks of sharp increases in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths.

The new steps being imposed by Gov. Eric Holcomb will limit social gathering sizes in those counties at the higher-risk levels of coronavirus spread and would cover 87 of the state’s 92 counties as of Wednesday’s update from the state health department.

A new executive order starting this weekend will limit crowd sizes to 20 people in the highest-risk red counties and 50 people in the next-riskiest orange counties, with larger events needing approval from local health officials.

The new order will also limit capacity at K-12 indoor sports and extracurricular events to 25% capacity in orange counties and only parents or guardians as spectators in red counties. Religious services, however, will face no crowd restrictions.

Holcomb said he was also extending the statewide mask mandate for another month.

Holcomb had decided in late September to lift nearly all of Indiana’s business and crowd size restrictions. Since then, Indiana hospitals have seen a 200% increase in COVID-19 patients and the seven-day rolling average deaths has gone jumped from 10 a day to 38, just short of the state’s peak in late April.

Holcomb had for weeks resisted taking any new actions as he faced conservative complaints during this reelection campaign that he had infringed on individual liberties, along with criticism from this Democratic challenger that his response was too passive.

Holcomb said a day after winning reelection last week that he wasn’t planning any changes to COVID-19 policy, but on Wednesday blamed residents for not abiding by precautions such as mask wearing and distancing to slow the virus spread.

“Unfortunately, too many of us, and around the country, have let our guards down, and either assumed we won’t get it or if we do, so be it, we’ll get through it,” Holcomb said.

The increased COVID-19 case load has strained hospitals around the state and threatens to exceed their bed capacity and overwhelm their health care staffs, he said.

The updated risk map released Wednesday by the state health department listed 87 of the state’s 92 counties in the highest two of its four risk levels, compared to 53 counties that were at those levels last week. The agency assigned the most dangerous red rating to nine counties, all in rural areas of the state. None received the lowest-level blue rating.

In early October, the state’s risk map gave all but nine counties the less-serious yellow or blue ratings. Those ratings are based on the number of new cases per 100,000 residents and the percentage of tests confirming COVID-19 infections.

State health officials on Wednesday added 31 more deaths to Indiana’s pandemic toll, raising it to 4,762 fatalities, including confirmed and presumed coronavirus infections since March.