‘Way,way too many.’ 1,635 new Kentucky coronavirus cases and 11 deaths.
Gov. Andy Beshear announced 1,635 new cases of COVID-19 across Kentucky on Wednesday, lifting the state case total to 113,009 and continuing the state’s defined escalation of cases.
Today’s daily case total is a slight drop from last Wednesday’s 1,864 new cases reported. Beshear said he didn’t know if the latest daily increase was impacted by Election Day on Tuesday. Reporting new cases of the coronavirus has typically been a bit lower the day after a holiday, he said.
Regardless, 1,635 new cases is “way,way too many,” he said. Beshear also announced 11 additional deaths, edging the death toll up to 1,514.
Beshear said there are 1,066 people hospitalized with the virus across Kentucky, 286 of whom are in intensive care — an increase of 27 from Tuesday. At least 125 patients are on ventilators, up from 116 yesterday.
Dr. Steven Stack, public health commissioner, said the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 across the commonwealth has doubled in the last two months, and the number of coronavirus patients in intensive care has “substantially doubled.” On Sept. 28, 517 were hospitalized with the virus. That amount ticked up to 988 on Nov. 2.
He implored Kentuckians to follow state guidelines and mandates to mitigate spread of the virus and stop what now seems like an inevitability that hospitalizations will only continue to climb. About 30 percent of hospital beds were unoccupied across Kentucky’s health care systems on Wednesday, and 15 percent of ICU beds are available, according to the Kentucky Hospital Association.
Though capacity is a very real concern if the coronavirus continues to surge statewide, it’s potentially more likely that hospitals would reach a limit in staffing before occupancy was maxed out, Beshear said, adding that “lessening cases is the only way to make sure that [doesn’t] happen.”
Nearly 80 counties are in the red zone, an amount Stack called “alarmingly large.” If a county is designated as in the “red zone,” by the state Department for Public Health’s incidence rate map, it means means a county has at least 25 cases per 100,000 people. Some Kentucky counties are reporting almost double that amount; Magoffin and Floyd counties, for instance, have 58 and 59 cases per 100,000 people. Jackson County has a rate of 61 cases, and Bell County is boasting the highest incidence rate on Tuesday with 86 cases.
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The statewide positivity rate, a weekly average, is up to 6.3 percent. Statewide, 2,136,109 tests have been administered, nearly 50,000 of which were new on Tuesday.
The virus continues to spread aggressively in nursing homes. There are at least 116 new cases among residents and 75 among nursing home staff. Statewide, those facilities are monitoring 1,665 active cases.
Sixteen of the recently announced deaths were nursing home residents, one of the most vulnerable populations, Beshear said. Lexington announced its 100th death from the virus Wednesday morning. More than half of those deaths — 57 — were nursing home residents. Nearly 120 new cases of the virus were also announced in Lexington on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, which was a holiday for K-12 schools, 15 additional students and seven staff tested positive, according to the school coronavirus dashboard, and 124 students and staff were asked to quarantine because they were exposed to someone with the virus. So far this week, at least 218 students and staff have tested positive, and 1,346 students and 209 staff are in quarantine.
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 4:39 PM.
