Lexington breaks 1-month record for new COVID-19 cases. Contact tracers can’t keep up
With 245 new cases reported Tuesday morning, Lexington has set a new one-month record for COVID-19 cases.
In just the first 16 days of November, the city reported 2,838 new cases, surpassing September’s record of 2,804 new cases. The city’s rolling seven-day average has swelled to more than 217 new cases per day. Lexington is on pace to surpass 5,000 new cases in just this month.
The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department’s contact tracers can’t keep up with the influx of cases, and the city has been forced to “streamline” its process to focus primarily on positive cases. That means Lexington residents who test positive for coronavirus may experience a “delay” before hearing from a contact tracer, health department spokesman Kevin Hall said.
“If you live in Lexington and test positive for COVID-19, please begin your isolation period immediately, and you will be contacted by the health department as soon as possible,” Hall said in a statement Tuesday. “We are also asking you to start contacting anyone who you have been in close contact with to help slow the spread.”
People who were potentially exposed to COVID-19 may not get contacted at all. The health department will only be able to follow up on contacts in certain higher-risk situations, Hall said. That’s why the health department has asked those who test positive to contact others.
“There is currently a delay, so we need people to help,” Hall told the Herald-Leader.
The health department has published guides to its website intended to help people understand what they need to do if they test positive or come in close contact with COVID-19.
Those who think they have COVID-19 or have tested positive for COVID-19 are asked to begin self-isolating right away. Those who come in close contact are asked to limit their contacts, monitor themselves for symptoms and practice good hygiene.
The breakneck pace of new COVID-19 cases is “very worrisome going into Thanksgiving and December,” Hall said. The growth in infections follows a slight decrease in October.
“Unfortunately right now, at least in Lexington, this is the new normal,” Hall said. “The lull of October is a distant memory, and we are faced with almost double the case count right now.”
Hall said he’s concerned that people have let their guard down on COVID-19 safety because there’s been encouraging news about COVID-19 vaccine trials. But he said the time frame for vaccine distribution to the general public is similar to a college basketball season.
“Vaccine news is Midnight Madness, and broad distribution is the Final Four,” Hall said. “There’s a long way still to go.”
All of Lexington’s top five single-day increases have come in the past 10 days, with four of those featuring more than 200 cases.
The Fayette County incidence rate has surged into the 60s, meaning it’s nearly three times worse than the threshold for the state Department for Public Health’s “red zone.” The incidence rate is defined as the average daily number of new cases in a county per 100,000 residents. It’s calculated on a rolling seven-day average.
Any county with an incidence rate of 25 or higher is placed in the state’s red zone. There were 103 Kentucky counties in the red zone as of Monday evening.
Gov. Andy Beshear warned Monday evening that new steps would be taken to try to stop the spread of coronavirus if case numbers didn’t improve by Wednesday. The precautions would be “more targeted” than the steps taken earlier in the year, which included shutdowns of nonessential stores and other businesses.
In addition to 245 new cases, Lexington also reported 14 new hospitalizations Tuesday morning. There have been 14,171 total COVID-19 cases reported in Lexington, as well as 791 hospitalizations and 104 deaths.
This story was originally published November 17, 2020 at 9:07 AM.