776 new Kentucky coronavirus cases and 8 deaths. Positivity rate below 4%.
Gov. Andy Beshear announced 776 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases in Kentucky to 58,764. He also announced eight more deaths from the virus, putting the death toll at 1,082.
“In general, we still have higher case numbers than we’d like to see, but we don’t at the moment see them accelerating” from week to week, Beshear said.
Wednesday’s announced deaths included a 49-year-old woman in Christian County and an 84-year-old woman in Greenup County.
On Wednesday, the state announced 22,134 new coronavirus tests. Since Sunday, 99,203 tests have been administered. Since March, the state has conducted 1,090,160 tests. The official rate of positive tests over the last seven days is 3.89 percent.
Beshear said the mask mandate continues to help drive down Kentucky’s positive test rate, and Kentuckians should expect it will be in place for the foreseeable future.
“It is an effective tool, [and] it’s helping get our kids back in school,” he said.
Kentucky’s Public Health Commissioner, Dr. Steven Stack, reaffirmed the effectiveness of wearing a mask to tamp down the spread of the virus and chided the “grown adults” who claim they can’t breathe with one on.
“I think they have misunderstood inconvenience with inability,” Stack said. “It’s just like when you talk to your child and say, ‘I think you have your needs and wants confused.’”
Stack said Kentuckians “have to get over this inconvenience somehow being an infringement that is offensive to us. This is a tool we have so that we can get back to activity.”
In the White House’s weekly report, which Beshear shared during his daily update, 13 Kentucky counties, including Warren County, still have a positivity rate of 10 percent or higher. But for the first time, neither Jefferson nor Fayette counties made the list. Kentucky’s two most populated counties, along with nearly 40 others, have a positive test rate between 5 and 10 percent, according to the White House metrics.
Mark Carter, who oversees Kentucky’s contact tracing program, said there are roughly 767 contact tracers and 394 disease investigators helping to trace and contain new cases of the virus across the state. Beshear in May said he was using $112 million in CARES Act money to hire hundreds of new contact tracers through the end of December.
There are 349 active student cases in Kentucky’s K-12 schools — an increase of 41 from Tuesday, according to the Kentucky Department of Public Health. Twenty-seven of the total active cases among students are in Fayette County Public Schools. Six more faculty and staff are also reportedly positive, pushing that population’s active cases to 162.
Four additional college student positives were reported on Wednesday, totaling 1,088 active cases. Of those, 665 are at the University of Kentucky, according to the state.
In Kentucky nursing and assisted living homes, 18 more residents and 22 staff have tested positive, Beshear said. Overall, 526 residents and 352 staff actively have the virus.
There are 565 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Kentucky, 125 of whom are in intensive care, and 75 are on a ventilator.
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 4:38 PM.
