‘Slow start’ ends with new surge. Lexington sets COVID-19 death record in October
Lexington’s COVID-19 plateau in October was short-lived, as the city’s new infections hit record highs at the end of the month.
Lexington went into October amid three consecutive weeks of decreasing new cases. By the end of the month, the seven-day rolling average of new cases had eclipsed 110 and Lexington recorded three of its five largest single-day case increases. Lexington also set new monthly highs for hospitalizations and deaths in October.
The totals for the month included 2,736 cases and 23 deaths. There were 138 new hospitalizations for the month, as of Oct. 30. The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department didn’t specify how many new hospitalizations were reported on Oct. 31, but there were seven new hospitalizations over the weekend.
The city reported 97 new cases for the first day of November. There were no new deaths reported over the weekend. The city has now had 11,430 cases, 684 hospitalizations and 99 deaths since the pandemic first reached Kentucky in March.
The city’s rolling seven-day average has increased to 119.3. The last time it was over 100 was mid-September.
Early October featured “a slow start,” according to Kevin Hall, health department spokesman. That slow start helped keep new cases lower than they were in September. But slow turned to a surge of new cases, and October ended with the second-highest new infection monthly total since the pandemic arrived.
Cases among University of Kentucky students ticked back up in the final week of October too. UK’s campus population had seen a steady decrease in cases for six consecutive weeks, but the rolling seven-day average for new cases was back up to 16.7 over the past week.
The late October surge has put Fayette County way over the state’s “red zone” threshold, meaning there is critical spread of the virus, according to the state Department for Public Health. Gov. Andy Beshear last week announced new recommendations for red zone counties.
He asked local leaders and business owners to postpone or reschedule public or private events, and he asked businesses to allow any employee who can to work from home. All non-critical government offices should move temporarily to telework, and community members should reduce in-person shopping and avoid gathering in groups of any size, Beshear said.
Lexington’s latest numbers fall in line with the rest of the state, which saw a significant escalation in new COVID-19 cases throughout October. There were 38,379 new coronavirus cases across Kentucky in October, which was almost twice as many as the state reported in September.
This story was originally published November 2, 2020 at 9:28 AM.