778 new Kentucky coronavirus cases and four deaths. Total cases top 30,000.
Gov. Andy Beshear announced 778 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Friday, pushing the state’s total number of cases past 30,000.
The governor, in a written update, said the state’s rate of people testing positive for coronavirus has decreased slightly for the third consecutive day, to 5.43 percent, “but we still have too many cases, and we need to do everything we can to try to decrease those.”
Friday’s nearly 800 new cases is the highest single-day increase this week. Since Sunday, 3,387 cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed. During the same period last week, the state had 3,747 new cases. July, in total, brought 14,527 new cases, compared with the 5,791 new positives in June.
Four more people with the virus have died, including a 63-year-old man in Perry County; a 75-year-old man in Fayette County; an 80-year-old woman in Taylor County; and an 86-year-old man in Jefferson County. The death toll is now 735.
There are 597 people hospitalized, 150 of whom are in intensive care — an uptick from earlier this week, Beshear noted.
Friday’s new cases included 23 children under the age of 5. In nursing and assisted living homes, 420 residents and 264 staff currently have the virus.
Overall, a total of 30,151 people in Kentucky have contracted the virus since early March.
Approximately 629,706 tests have been administered.
This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 4:32 PM.
