Kentucky coronavirus spike continues. 4,750 new cases and 13 deaths.
Kentucky’s post-holiday coronavirus spike continued Friday, as Gov. Andy Beshear announced 4,750 new cases of COVID-19 across the state and 13 more deaths.
Friday’s new case total is the third-highest the state has reported in a single day.
“We are now seeing a real and significant increase in cases and our positivity rate from people’s gatherings around the holiday,” he said in an early afternoon update on Friday.
Beshear also cited a new COVID-19 variant, which is thought to be 50 percent more transmissible, as a potential contributing factor to Kentucky’s surge. If that’s the case, it means “the virus may be more dangerous in terms of its spread than ever before,” he said.
This week, Kentucky recorded its three highest days for new cases. Wednesday brought a record 5,742 new cases, and Thursday saw 4,911, making it the second-highest day. The rate of people testing positive is at 11.93 percent. The death toll has reached 2,856 and the case total is up to 296,167.
On Friday, the governor announced 82 new infections among nursing home residents and 50 among staff. Deaths among nursing home residents surpassed 2,000 on Friday.
Immunizations at some of these facilities are still slow-going. A state report showed that Walgreens and CVS Health, which hold federal contracts to give the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in these places, have immunized a majority of residents, but a minority of staff.
CVS has given shots to more than 53 percent of its resident pool and Walgreens has doled out doses to 75 percent. But only 30 percent of staff have been vaccinated by Walgreens and 47 percent by CVS.
Overall, 23,675 doses have been administered among these groups, and the state’s goal is to finish vaccinating this population by Jan. 25.
Coronavirus vaccine distribution, generally, gained momentum this week after a push from the governor’s office for providers to administer doses more quickly to nursing homes and health care personnel. By Friday, 107,799 people had received either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. Beshear is urging providers to administer at least 90 percent of their doses within seven days of receiving them.
“We’ve got to pick up our pace,” he said.
To assist with a faster roll out, citing a suggestion from this week’s White House coronavirus report, the state is in the process of coordinating “high through-point vaccination sites,” Beshear said, “where we can get thousands of people through every day.”
He also said the state is contending with “vaccine hesitancy,” but didn’t immediately offer specifics on a plan to overcome that hesitancy.
The state continues to struggle with a timely processing of unemployment insurance claims. The state has processed 90 percent of claims filed over the last year, but because of the unprecedented volume (more than 1.5 million people filed for benefits), that leaves roughly 90,000 claims that have yet to be processed, said Amy Cubbage, general counsel for the state Labor Cabinet. Only about 30,000 of those are considered to be legitimate claims, she said, and the rest are considered fraudulent.
Beshear, in his State of the Commonwealth address Thursday night, said he will earmark $48 million in federal CARES Act funding to cut people a one-time payment of $1,000. People will qualify if they filed for unemployment benefits more than two months ago and still haven’t received any benefits even though they are still without a job. That proposal also includes giving roughly 60,000 people who receive less than $176 a week in benefits a single $400 check.
This story was originally published January 8, 2021 at 1:41 PM.
