Lexington has 288 new COVID-19 cases. Christmas lab closures may have caused spike.
Lexington reported a one-day COVID-19 case spike with 288 new confirmed cases Wednesday morning.
The 288 new cases were the most reported in a single day since Dec. 9, when the city had 451 new cases in one day. The city’s rolling seven-day average of new cases jumped up to 136.1 with the newly-confirmed cases. It fell as low as 110 in the past week.
The case spike isn’t due to an outbreak at any specific place, according to the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department.
“It’s more than likely just due to the fact that some labs were closed for the Christmas holiday,” health department spokesperson Christina King said. That closure may have caused a delay in reporting the cases to the health department, she said.
But there are some congregate facilities experiencing high case numbers. There were 256 inmates Tuesday who were actively positive for COVID-19 at Federal Medical Center, a prison facility on Leestown Road, according to the Bureau of Prisons. There were also four staff members who were actively positive.
There were also 29 new cases of COVID-19 reported Wednesday among residents at Homestead Post Acute, a nursing home in Lexington, according to the state Department for Public Health. It’s possible that those 29 cases had already been counted in Lexington’s cases due to lags in data reporting between the county and state health departments.
Homestead has had 104 total COVID-19 cases among its residents, 13 of which have died, according to the state Department for Public Health.
The new cases increased Lexington’s total case count to 22,894 since March 8. There have been 5,491 cases reported in December, which is the second-most Lexington has reported in a single month.
Lexington’s COVID-19 deaths keep rising in past months
The Lexington health department reported three newly-confirmed deaths Wednesday morning, but two of them occurred in November. Health department officials said previously that it can take a long time to confirm “pending” deaths as COVID-19 deaths. Each case goes through an investigation to determine that COVID-19 caused the victim’s death, according to the health department.
The health department has confirmed 34 COVID-19 deaths from November, making it the deadliest month Lexington has seen in the pandemic. October was the second-deadliest month with 25 deaths. There have been 23 confirmed deaths so far in December.
There have been 159 total COVID-19 deaths in Lexington.
Lexington smashes hospitalization record again in December
Lower case numbers haven’t equated to lower hospitalization numbers in December. There had been 328 Lexington residents admitted to hospitals with COVID-19 through the first 29 days of the month. November set the city’s previous record with 252 residents admitted to hospitals.
There were two weeks in December in which Lexington reported more than 90 new COVID-19 hospitalizations. There were more than 100 residents hospitalized with coronavirus at the same time earlier in December, according to the health department.
The health department only tracks hospitalizations for people who live in Fayette County. Out-of-county residents who came to Lexington for treatment added to the strain on local hospitals.
This story was originally published December 30, 2020 at 10:17 AM.
CORRECTION: The most recent date on which Lexington reported more than 288 cases was incorrect in a previous version of this story.