Lexington has more than 150 new COVID-19 cases. Contact tracers being ignored
As the number of new coronavirus cases in Fayette County continues to climb, more people are not cooperating with contact tracers tasked with tracking and preventing the highly contagious illness from spreading, Lexington health officials said.
The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department reported 152 new COVID-19 cases Thursday morning, the third-most the city has ever reported in a single day. There was one new death, pushing the city’s fatalities to 101. Since March, Lexington has had 11,824 cases, 704 hospitalizations and 101 deaths.
Fayette County Health Commissioner Dr. Kraig Humbaugh said the health department is monitoring daily 1,000 Lexington residents who have the virus and are in isolation. With 100-plus new cases a day, contact tracing has been stretched thin, he said.
Lexington has 125 contractors doing contact tracing along with other COVID-19 work, according to the health department.
“Unfortunately, we are seeing more reluctance among certain populations to cooperate and be truthful with us when we call,” Humbaugh said during Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton’s bi-weekly coronavirus update.
“We need people to be truthful with us about who they were around and when they became symptomatic and who might have had close contact with them,” Humbaugh said.
Humbaugh asked Gorton and members of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council on Wednesday to remind constituents that a key part of containing the virus and keeping new infections low is isolation and contact tracing.
“Please take our call or our text,” Humbaugh said. “For isolation and contract tracing to work, we have to have buy-in from the public.”
Residents ignoring contact tracers isn’t exclusive to Lexington, Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday. It’s becoming a trend statewide and even nationwide, he said.
“That means we’re seeing more people that would rather knowingly spread this virus than stop it,” Beshear said.
Fayette County to remain in Kentucky’s “red zone” next week
Fayette County’s COVID-19 spread was still well beyond the threshold of “critical,” according to the state Department for Public Health. The county will be in the red zone next week, Gov. Andy Beshear announced Thursday. About two-thirds of Kentucky’s counties were in the red zone Thursday.
For red zone counties, the governor’s office recommends that local leaders and business owners postpone or reschedule public or private events, businesses allow any employee who can to work from home and all non-critical government offices to move temporarily to telework. Community members should reduce in-person shopping and avoid gathering in groups of any size.
A county is in the state’s red zone if it has more than 25 new cases per day per 100,000 people.
Hospital capacity not an issue in Lexington, but staffing could be
New hospital concerns have risen as cases have increased in Lexington and across Kentucky. But there is more concern about ensuring adequate hospital staffing than there is about running out of hospital beds, Gov. Andy Beshear said in a press conference Wednesday.
That’s also the case in Lexington, according to local officials, despite the fact that new hospitalizations have increased recently. There were 35 new hospitalizations among Lexington residents last week, and as of Thursday morning, there were 20 new hospitalizations this week. Lexington set a new one-month high for COVID-19 hospitalizations in October.
UK HealthCare had 47 COVID-19 inpatients as of Wednesday, with 18 of them in the intensive care unit, according to Kristi Willett, a spokeswoman for UK HealthCare. The number of COVID-19 patients at UK has remained steady at 45 to 50 patients over the last couple weeks, Willett said.
Baptist Health Lexington had 34 COVID-19 patients hospitalized as of Thursday morning, with four of those in the intensive care unit.
Ruth Ann Childers, a spokeswoman for Baptist Health, said the number of COVID-19 patients has fluctuated over the past few weeks, but the hospital is starting to see an increase in hospitalizations. Childers said the hospital has 434 available beds and has the capacity to handle coronavirus patients and people with other health ailments.
“Please seek medical attention if you need it,” Childers said. During the early days of the pandemic, local hospitals saw an alarming number of people delaying emergency medical care. “If you have chest pain, you need to come to the hospital,” Childers said.
“Right now, there appears to be plenty of hospital beds available in Lexington,” Lexington health department spokesman Kevin Hall said.
The mayor said Wednesday hospitals and health care providers told her the number of employees in isolation or quarantine is increasing, creating staffing challenges.
“They have higher number of cases among their staff members, meaning they cannot come to work,” Gorton said. That was true with all health care providers, she said during her bi-weekly COVID-19 update.
UK HealthCare admitted staffing was a “challenge,” especially during the pandemic.
“Staffing is something that we are always closely monitoring,” spokeswoman Kristi Willett said Thursday. “It is no doubt a challenge that is heightened by the stress of COVID cases in the hospital as well as being treated in our outpatient clinics.”
Baptist Health Lexington has had an increase in the number of staff in quarantine due to potential exposure to coronavirus, but those quarantines have not created a critical staffing shortage, Childers said.
“We are managing the staffing,” she said.
This story was originally published November 5, 2020 at 9:52 AM.