‘Still way too high,’ but Kentucky sees lowest number of new COVID-19 cases in 4 weeks
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced 1,268 new cases of the virus across the state on Monday and 39 more deaths, increasing the state’s total number of cases to 347,836 and lifting the death toll to 3,460.
Beshear, in a live update Monday afternoon, said the day’s tally of new cases is the “lowest number of new cases in the last four weeks.”
“We now have two straight weeks of decline,” he said of the daily case numbers, though adding “our cases are still way too high.”
The rate of Kentuckians testing positive also continues to decline, landing Monday at 9.93 percent — the first time the rate has fallen below 10 percent since Dec. 31.
Unlike the slowing number of new infections, the state’s death rate has yet to fully plateau. Monday’s number of confirmed deaths means it tied for the ninth-deadliest day since the start of the pandemic. The state also reported 39 deaths on Dec. 31.
There are 1,539 people hospitalized with the coronavirus, 374 of whom are in intensive care and 203 are on a ventilator.
The state continues to ramp up its rollout of both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines as it readies to launch a series of regional drive-thru vaccination sites early next month through its partnership with Kroger. Beshear plans to release a more detailed plan about this centralized system on Thursday.
As of Monday, 308,812 doses were injected into Kentuckians. Of those doses, at least 47,105 have gone to staff and residents in long-term care facilities — 38 percent of the total doses the Long Term Care program has received.
Roughly 141,000 of those doses arrived between Friday, Jan. 18, and Friday, Jan. 22, according to the Kentucky Department of Public Health. That week officials gave out at least 77,030 doses of the vaccine — 19,450 of which were second doses.
Less than 1 percent of the statewide population — .44 percent — have received both doses of the vaccine and are considered fully immunized.
Beshear said all residents and staff in long-term care facilities have been offered at least a first dose of the vaccine by CVS Health and Walgreens. On Monday, there were new positive cases in 70 long-term care residents and 55 staff, bringing the total number of active cases to 1,359.
In K-12 schools across Kentucky, 1,321 students and 602 staff tested positive last week, though those numbers are likely higher, since not all schools logged their local coronavirus information into the state’s dashboard, the governor noted. After coming into direct contact with the virus last week, least 5,422 students and 780 staff had to quarantine, as did athletes on close to 30 high school sports teams, Beshear said.
The state’s ability to swiftly inoculate the population depends heavily on the number of doses it receives each week, Beshear said, and it’s not receiving enough. The tight supply will likely limit how many people are able to get appointments at the Kroger immunization sites next month.
“Our ability to provide Kentuckians with vaccinations is extremely limited due to insufficient supply we are getting from the federal government,” he said.
Herald-Leader reporter Daniel Desrochers contributed data reporting.
This story was originally published January 25, 2021 at 4:52 PM.
