Kentucky’s rate of positive COVID-19 tests is at lowest point in months
Gov. Andy Beshear announced 777 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Friday, bringing the state’s total to 60,128. He also announced eight new deaths, raising the death toll to 1,101.
The official rate of positive coronavirus cases over the past seven days dropped to 3.6 percent, its lowest point in months.
“The choices we make are going to determine how many people we lose going forward,” Beshear said in a news release. “There’s still so much work to do, and Kentucky lives are on the line.”
There are 500 people in the hospital with COVID-19 in Kentucky, the lowest number since July 17, but the 148 Kentuckians who are in intensive care is the highest since last Saturday.
For much of this week, the positivity rate has stayed under 4 percent, the result of an influx of new testing. Between Sunday and Friday, the state reported 124,148 COVID-19 tests, nearly double the number of tests the state typically announces in a single week.
Anya Weber, a spokeswoman for the Cabinet of Health and Family Services, said the increase in testing came in part because of “an onboarding” of a lab into the state’s lab surveillance survey.
Beshear also emphasized the number of COVID-19 cases in children under 18 years old. On Friday, Beshear said 97 of the new cases were children 18 and younger. Currently, children under the age of nine make up 3.95 percent of the COVID-19 cases in Kentucky since the beginning of the pandemic and children between the ages of 10 and 19 make up 11.02 percent of the cases.
Many 18- and 19-year-olds have been tested for the virus as they return to college campuses. There are 1,098 active cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky colleges and universities, according to the Department of Public Health, 665 of which are at the University of Kentucky.
There are 340 active cases among children in K-12 schools in the state and 135 active cases among staff. Fayette County Public Schools reported 26 active cases on Friday.
While there has been plenty of attention on children as the state navigates reopening schools during a pandemic, people who are older than 80 continue to be disproportionately affected by the virus. Around 5 percent of the cases and 49 percent of the deaths have been in people who are older than 80, even though that demographic only makes up 3.76 percent of the population.
There are 563 active cases of COVID-19 among nursing home residents and 388 active cases among staff. At least 617 people have died with the coronavirus at nursing homes. That equals 56 percent of Kentucky’s COVID-19 deaths.
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 4:46 PM.
