2,250 new KY COVID cases and 27 deaths. Beshear asks feds to double vaccine supply.
Gov. Andy Beshear announced 2,250 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Tuesday and 27 virus-related deaths as the rollout of the vaccine continues across the state.
Tuesday’s tally of new cases is lower than last Tuesday, which may signal that the spike in cases following Christmas is slowing down.
The “hope” is that the “post-holiday surge may not be the new normal in the fight against the virus,” Beshear said.
The state has now reported a total of 330,907 cases and 3,194 deaths.
The rate of Kentuckians testing positive is at 11.55 percent — the lowest since Jan. 5, Beshear said.
There are 1,633 people hospitalized with the virus, 442 of whom are in intensive care and 208 are on ventilators.
Last week in K-12 schools, 1,214 more students tested positive, as did 500 teachers and staff. Just over 4,000 students and 733 staff were quarantined last week from exposure to the virus.
The speed of Kentucky’s vaccination rollout is accelerating, but supply isn’t increasing fast enough to match it, Beshear said. Last week, for instance, more doses were injected into people’s arms (83,212) than were received by the state (roughly 69,500), hinting at a challenge that will continue in the coming weeks: meeting high demand with limited supply.
Beshear said earlier on Tuesday he formally asked the federal government to double the amount of vaccine it gives Kentucky each week. “Supply is going to be our major issue in the U.S. and it’s why we’re going to have to have patience,” he said, adding that his office will examine the plausibility of buying vaccine directly from suppliers, rather than waiting to receive it from the federal government.
Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said it’s hard on both people waiting for their shots and suppliers of those shots, who don’t know how many doses they will receive week to week. He called it a “market dysfunction.”
“We have to provide a system where people who are vaccinators know they’ll get a stable supply going forward,” Stack said.
Though many counties have moved on to inoculating people in category 1B — K-12 personnel, first responders and people age 70 and older — those who work in schools are being prioritized in an effort to speed up the return to in-person learning, Stack said. There are close to 85,000 school personnel who qualify for a vaccine.
That means the bulk of immunizations for people over age 70 likely won’t come until February. After teachers and first responders, “please know [people over 70] are our next priority,” Stack said.
The state is nearing the end of immunizing its 1A population, which includes health care personnel and residents and staff in long-term care facilities. Beshear said all residents and staff in skilled nursing facilities in the state have been offered a first dose of the vaccine, as have two-thirds of residents and staff in assisted living facilities.
Since most are still waiting for a second dose and are therefore not yet fully immunized, more people continue to test positive. Beshear said there are new cases of the virus among 101 residents and 62 staff.
There’s a surplus of vaccine that CVS Health and Walgreens won’t use after all first and second doses have been given out. “The amount we were required to provide CVS and Walgreens, we believe, is going to be more than they need,” Beshear said.
The state is working with both pharmacy chains to figure out exactly how many doses will be leftover for other populations, he said.
Financial relief for KY hospitals
Kentucky hospitals are slated to receive an extra $800 million to $1 billion annually, Beshear announced Tuesday.
The state Cabinet for Health and Family Services got approval on Jan. 14 from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for a “new directed payment initiative that increases inpatient Medicaid payments” for hospitals. Those payments could begin as early as March.
More than one-third of the state’s population — over 1.6 million Kentuckians — is enrolled in Medicaid. CHFS Secretary Eric Friedlander said the approved sum of money will allow hospitals across the state to bill for an “average commercial rate” when caring for all patients, including those who are enrolled in Medicaid. Typically, reimbursements hospitals get for Medicaid patients are much lower than a patient using private insurance.
Friedlander said this money will help level out reimbursement of cost and care. “This gives us the opportunity to pay the hospitals what they would normally receive for anybody that would be coming in their hospital that would be under private insurance,” he said.
The measure has been drafted into bill form (House Bill 183) and requires approval from the General Assembly. Friedlander touted it as a way to help provide greater support and flexibility to the state’s health care system, especially for smaller, more rural hospitals.
This story was originally published January 19, 2021 at 4:47 PM.
