Lexington’s COVID-19 spread is double what the state says. City reports 88 new cases
The state health department has classified Fayette County’s COVID-19 spread over the last seven days as “accelerated.” But the city’s numbers indicate that the growth in cases is “critical.”
The Kentucky Department for Public Health reported Tuesday evening that Fayette County had an average of 16 new cases per 100,000 residents, which dropped the county into the second-worst classification for “incidence rate.” A lag in the state’s data compared to the county’s actual COVID-19 numbers makes conditions look better than they are.
Lexington-Fayette County’s actual rate of new cases per 100,000 residents is 35.2 per day over the past week, based on data the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department has released. Kevin Hall, spokesman for the local health department, attributed the miscalculation to a lag between county and state data. The discrepancies in county-to-state data have been prevalent throughout the pandemic.
“Using a single simple metric doesn’t always tell the whole story,” Hall said. “...We’re entering the information into our system and then trying to put the information into the state’s system.”
Hall said everyone has to work within these parameters, and the county hasn’t been able to keep the state as updated as it has been able to keep its own residents. He said the county’s daily update every morning is the freshest, most accurate data available for those focused on Fayette County. And the delay isn’t hindering the health department’s efforts to keep people safe, he said.
“I can’t stress this enough, the people who need to be contacted are being contacted,” he said.
Lexington reported 88 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday morning, increasing the city’s total to 7,384. Lexington has had 490 hospitalizations, 70 deaths and 6,128 recoveries since the pandemic first reached the city.
University of Kentucky uses different measures for positivity rate
Lexington’s cases are largely being driven by University of Kentucky students. UK had 665 active cases among students as of Tuesday, according to the state health department. That’s by far the most for any college in Kentucky. But the university has more students than any other college, and it set out to test every student returning to campus for the fall semester.
UK’s case totals have increased significantly in recent weeks. More than 16 percent of tests conducted by UK came back positive from Sept. 5 through Sept. 12, according to UK’s COVID-19 dashboard.
The university said on Twitter that it didn’t consider the 16 percent to be its positivity rate. It instead calculates the positivity rate using active cases divided by the student population required to be tested. But that’s not what the state does.
The Kentucky Department for Public Health uses a rolling seven-day average of positive tests divided by total tests administered. It disregards positive results from test sites that don’t disclose their total tests administered in an effort to not artificially affect the positivity rate.
UK also said that it doesn’t use positive tests divided by total tests to determine positivity rate because the total includes tests from University Health Services, which was recommending that symptomatic individuals be tested. The state’s positivity rate includes testing of symptomatic patients, as long as they get tested at a site that discloses its total number of tests.
“We believe that using the total number of active cases is the more transparent, comprehensive and objective way to calculate this important data point,” UK said in a tweet.
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 9:30 AM.