2,319 new Kentucky COVID-19 cases, 26 deaths. Vaccinations ‘need to move faster.’
Citing his concern over an expected spike in new coronavirus cases following Christmas, Gov. Andy Beshear announced 2,319 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and 26 more deaths across Kentucky.
The newly reported case tally is the most ever reported on a Monday, the governor said in his first live coronavirus update of 2021.
“We do have real concerns that people’s behavior and getting together, especially over the Christmas holiday . . . will increase cases that we see over the coming weeks,” he said.
The rate of Kentuckians testing positive has climbed to 11.18 percent, an all-time high. Beshear said it’s not clear whether this elevated rate is due to closures of testing sites, or the result of holiday gatherings. “We think it’s some of both,” he said. The total number of cases now stands at 279,143 and the death toll has reached 2,749.
Beshear said Kentucky needs to hasten its sprint to distribute hundreds of thousands of doses of the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccines in a matter of weeks. So far, 60,414 Kentuckians have received an initial dose — well under the 174,750 total doses the state has so far received.
Across the board, “we need to move faster,” Beshear said. “I am not OK with the pace they are currently being provided.”
Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack outlined a new goal for vaccination providers to administer 90 percent of all doses of the vaccine within a week of those doses arriving. “The goal is to not have vaccine sitting in a freezer,” he said.
Roughly 52,650 doses have been received by long-term care facilities, but only 10,641 residents and staff have so far been immunized by Walgreens and CVS, he said. On Monday, there were 105 new coronavirus infections among residents at nursing and assisted living homes and 126 new cases among staff.
This effort to quickly vaccinate as many people as possible while adhering to a tiered system was always going to be somewhat slapdash, Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said. Distribution of the vaccine right before the holiday season exacerbated that struggle.
Stack said he expects distribution of the vaccine to naturally pick up pace in the coming weeks, as Kentucky finishes immunizing its frontline health care workers and graduates to inoculating larger populations.
As the state broadens who is eligible and ramps up the speed at which those doses are administered, it’s only inevitable that some groups will receive their dose out of order, Stack said. People most at risk will still be prioritized, but the goal is “getting it out as fast as possible to as many people willing to have it,” he said.
All health care personnel, along with long-term care facility residents and staff should have access to their first dose by the end of January. The next phase of people eligible for a vaccine includes emergency first responders, K-12 personnel and people over the age of 70. Beshear expects to start this phase by late January or early February.
After immunizations of that population are well underway, people over the age of 60 and essential workers are eligible, as is anyone over age 16 who is considered at high risk by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Following that, those over 40 will be eligible for vaccination, trailed by those who are 16 or over. No vaccine has yet been approved for children under 16.
There are 1,737 people hospitalized with the virus, 456 of whom are in intensive care and 216 are on ventilators.
Lexington on Monday reported 534 new cases of COVID-19 — a combination of 265 cases on Saturday and 269 from Sunday — along with three new deaths and 26 more hospitalizations.
An outbreak at the Federal Medical Center, a federal prison on Leestown Road, has driven the county’s infections in recent weeks, causing a jump in the new case rate at December’s end. Close to 330 inmates were actively infected with the virus late last week.
This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 4:30 PM.
