Lexington reports 87 new COVID-19 cases. City explains lag between state, local numbers
Lexington reported 87 new COVID-19 cases and one new death Thursday morning.
The death was a person in their 80s, according to the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department.
Last week, Lexington’s COVID-19 positivity rate was between 5 and 10 percent, according to Gov. Andy Beshear. The White House classified that rate as a “Yellow Zone,” indicating coronavirus was not under control. There were 43 counties in Kentucky in the “Yellow Zone.” There were 20 Kentucky counties in the “Red Zone,” with a positivity rate at 10 percent or higher for last week.
“If you add the red and the yellow counties, you are close to, if not over, 50% of the entire state,” Beshear said on Twitter. “We must work to get #COVID19 under control in Kentucky.”
The city reported 37 new cases among University of Kentucky students. It’s unclear what the total number of UK students infected is. UK has reported 225 students who tested positive from their on-campus testing program, which started on Aug. 3. The city has reported 208 UK students who tested positive since the weekend of move-in on Aug. 8.
Since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Lexington on March 8, the city has reported 4,763 cases, 53 deaths, 372 hospitalizations and 3,784 recoveries.
The state’s reported numbers lag heavily behind the local health department’s reported cases. State data showed 3,534 cases for Fayette County as of Thursday morning. Health department spokesman Kevin Hall said the problem comes from a shortage of employees to do data entry.
“There is a current lag in providing the numbers into a federal system operated by the CDC and used in the state of Kentucky,” Hall said. “The delay is from the continued growth in cases with the ongoing need to increase staffing to enter the data.”
Hall also said the majority of cases in Lexington aren’t reported through electronic lab reports, so they have to be manually entered. These issues cause a backlog.
The state and city also report different amounts of new cases each day because the state collects information on new cases each afternoon, leading to an incomplete number as cases continue to be reported after the state collects its data. The city reports a complete number of new cases from the previous day each morning, Hall said.
None of this affects the contact tracing, Hall said. There is no delay in contacting those who test positive, he said.
“The numbers we report daily at lfchd.org are the most accurate numbers for Lexington,” Hall said.
Reporter Daniel Desrochers contributed to this story.
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 9:16 AM.