‘The very worst day.’ Kentucky shatters records for new coronavirus cases and deaths.
In a day of COVID-19 records by just about every metric, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced 4,151 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Tuesday and 35 additional deaths, both single-day highs.
In addition to cases and deaths, Tuesday’s tally included the following records: the number of kids under the age of 18 who tested positive (461); the number of people currently hospitalized (1,777, up 36 from Monday); the number of people in intensive care (441, an increase of 20); the number of people on a ventilator (241, up a dozen).
There’s “no way to sugar coat it: today is the very worst day we have had for reporting on the spread of the coronavirus, and it is the deadliest,” Beshear said Tuesday. “Today is a terrible day that shows us how quickly this thing is spreading. It shows why it is so important to take steps to stop it before it gets any worse.”
The rate of Kentuckians testing positive also hit an all-time high, at 9.59 percent. The total number of cases is up to 183,168 and the death toll has risen to 1,943. The deaths announced Tuesday included people in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
As community spread continues accelerating, Beshear restated the importance of getting tested at any of 358 locations statewide. Mark Carter, who heads up the state’s broad contact tracing program, said his team’s efforts — retroactively tracing all the people who interacted with a person who tested positive to try and contain further spread — is much less effective than it used to be, simply because the virus is just too widespread.
Nearly 900 contact tracers make up to 4,000 contacts with people in quarantine and isolation each day, he said, adding, “We’ve really reached a point where we’re being overwhelmed in terms of our disease investigation and contact tracing efforts.”
At least 57 nursing homes across Kentucky have 15 or more active cases of the virus, Beshear said. There are 173 new cases among nursing home residents and 109 among staff, bringing the total number of active cases in long-term care facilities to 3,444. Another veteran from the Thomson-Hood Veterans Center has also died, the governor said, bringing the coronavirus death toll among resident veterans to 31. A 37-year-old inmate from the Lee Adjustment Center has also died from the virus, Beshear said.
As Kentucky hospitals fill with more coronavirus patients, contact tracers and public health officials could begin finding out as early as later this week whether people’s activities over the Thanksgiving holiday caused another spike in cases. That may already be happening in Lexington, where the health department Monday reported 537 new cases from the weekend.
Like the rest of the state, November was the highest month for new coronavirus cases in Kentucky’s second largest city, the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department said Tuesday. The city ended the month having logged more than 6,000 new cases of the virus — 35 percent of its total caseload since March, and a head and shoulders above its previous September record of just over 2,800 cases.
Last month, Beshear announced a new wave of restrictions to try and hobble spread of the virus, including halting all indoor in-person dining at bars and restaurants until December 13. To provide some financial reprieve, Kentucky set up a $40 million fund for those business owners to absorb that blow. On Tuesday, Beshear said 2,650 restaurants and bars have already applied for a total of almost $26 million in relief, and the state has already distributed $1.7 million. He said the state will dole out from that pot as fast as it can until it’s depleted.
Beshear said he anticipates bars and restaurants will be able to reopen indoor dining at partial capacity on December 14 as planned, but until then, “I know this is hurting small businesses,” he said, and temporary closures indoors are “absolutely necessary to slow down this virus.”
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 4:25 PM.
