Lexington starts August with 145 new COVID-19 cases. Weekend cases top 230.
The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department reported 145 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the city’s total to 3,400.
With 91 cases from Friday announced Saturday morning, the total number of cases reported for the weekend was 236. The total for the past week was 544.
While there was just one death reported, last week still saw more new cases and hospitalizations than any week in July, which was the worst month yet for COVID-19 in Lexington. The past week featured three of the city’s five largest single-day case increases. That included 116 new cases on July 27, which is the highest increase the city has seen thus far.
Both Saturday and Sunday were in the top 11 single-day case increases, according to health department data. Saturday had 82 new cases, which was sixth, and Sunday had 63 cases, which was 11th. All of those top 11 increases have come since July 9.
The health department said in a statement Monday that coronavirus patients are contagious before their symptoms begin, and it again urged people to wear masks to stop the spread of the virus.
There were four new hospitalizations reported Saturday and Sunday, bringing the total since March to 301. Thirty of those were reported in the last week. New hospitalizations trended downward in mid-July, falling to 19 between July 13-19. But the last two weeks have seen consistent increase.
New infections have increased every week since at least June 22, according to data from the health department.
Lexington had 1,702 COVID-19 cases in July, more than previous months combined. There were also 17 deaths and 109 hospitalizations, both of which were one-month records for the city.
Lexington had its first confirmed coronavirus case in March. Since then, there have been 46 deaths and 2,540 recoveries reported by the health department.
This story was originally published August 3, 2020 at 9:26 AM.