948 new Kentucky coronavirus cases and 9 deaths. Rate of positive tests on the rise.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced 948 new cases of COVID-19 Friday, bringing the state’s total to 55,704 as the official numbers have begun catching up to a lag in reporting over the Labor Day holiday.
Beshear also announced nine new coronavirus-related deaths, bringing the total to 1,044 and marking the third time in four weeks that more than 50 deaths have been announced in a single week.
“This is the third highest number of positive cases we’ve ever had in a single day,” Beshear said in a news release. “Our positivity rate is also going up.”
Beshear announced 16,970 new coronavirus tests Friday (for a total of 960,430 tests conducted since the beginning of the pandemic), but the state’s official rate of positive tests over the past seven days rose to 4.7 percent, the highest it’s been since September 2nd.
At least 549 Kentuckians are currently in the hospital with COVID-19, 124 of whom are in intensive care. The state reported that at least 10,822 Kentuckians have recovered from the virus, but in tallying numbers from Kentucky’s 61 local health departments Thursday, the Herald-Leader found that at least 43,841 Kentuckians have recovered.
With college students returning to campus, the number of cases among people in their 20s has continued to rise. Nearly 20 percent of Kentucky’s COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic have been among people in their 20s, even though that demographic makes up only 13.59 percent of Kentucky’s population.
Beshear has reported 1,846 cases of COVID-19 among college students, two thirds of which come from the University of Kentucky.
At K-12 schools, the Beshear Administration has reported 555 total cases, 384 of which are considered active cases.
Even though people older than 80 only make up about 5 percent of the COVID-19 cases in Kentucky, they account for 48 percent of Kentucky’s COVID-19 deaths. Many of those deaths have come from nursing homes, where Beshear’s administration reports 594 coronavirus-related deaths.
On Friday, there were 523 active cases of COVID-19 among nursing home residents and 329 active cases among nursing home staff members.
$400 unemployment payments coming soon
The Kentucky Labor Cabinet announced late Friday that the state has begun the payment process for an extra $400 a week in unemployment insurance money to about 80,000 people who received benefits between July 26 and August 15.
The state will pay $100 from federal CARES Act money and the rest will be covered by FEMA’s Lost Wages Program. Beshear said the Office of Unemployment Insurance will notify people who still need to self-certify their claims and people should begin receiving payments in the next few days.
Kentucky’s application to the federal government to pay out the extra $400 was approved August 21, but programmers in the Office of Unemployment Insurance had to modify the agency’s outdated computer system so the money could be paid out.
This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 5:22 PM.
