COVID-19 vaccine site opening at KY Horse Park. 69 new deaths sets another record.
Gov. Andy Beshear on Thursday said Kentucky will gain a high-volume regional vaccination center next week in Lexington, as he announced 2,947 new cases of COVID-19 and a record 69 virus-related deaths.
Generally, “our trends are going in the right way,” Beshear said of the state’s new cases, positivity rate and number of hospitalizations. “But the result of so many cases and of our exponential growth [means] we are seeing significant loss that that creates,” he said.
Not all of the newly reported deaths are recent deaths, but Beshear didn’t immediately say how many. The reporting of those deaths was delayed, in part, while a cause of death was determined, he said. The death toll has now reached 3,611, while the state has confirmed a total of 355,877 cases.
Thursday’s new case total is the lowest increase on a Thursday in at least a month, Beshear said. The rate of Kentuckians testing positive continues to drop, hitting 9.04 percent. There are 1,561 people hospitalized, 370 of whom are in intensive care, and 205 are on a ventilator.
As spread of the coronavirus in Kentucky continues to slow, the state is ramping up its rollout of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccines. The first regional vaccination site in partnership with Kroger will open at 10 a.m. on Feb. 2 at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, in the Alltech Arena, Beshear announced. This site will offer 3,000 appointments in the first week, when it will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Beshear said these doses are generally reserved for “Kentuckians in phase 1B, particularly those 70 and older.” He asked all sites administering vaccines to prioritize this group “until further notice,” while other populations in 1A and 1B also remain eligible. 1B includes K-12 personnel, first responders, and people over age 70.
Signups for the Kroger site began at 5 p.m. Thursday at kroger.com/covidvaccine. Everyone must have an appointment in order to get a shot at the horse park, said Transportation Secretary Jim Gray, who’s heading the state’s partnership with Kroger.
“This is not a drop-in site,” Gray said.
Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said close to 100,000 people 70 and older have already received at least the first dose of their vaccine, leaving roughly 400,000 who’ve yet to be immunized.
People in 1C will not be able to sign up for an appointment next week, though Beshear previously said they would be able to. Earlier this month, the governor said the state would collectively open vaccine availability to people in priority groups through 1C by the first week of February, in conjunction with the opening of Kroger’s drive-thru sites. There are more than a million people in phase 1C, which includes people age 60 and older, essential workers, and anyone over the age of 16 with certain at-risk health conditions.
Since Beshear is asking organizations administering the vaccine to use at least 90 percent of their supply within seven days of receiving it, some in 1C may get an appointment if there are leftover shots and no one in 1A or 1B in need of a dose is immediately available.
As for opening appointments up more widely to 1C, that won’t happen “at least for the next several weeks,” he said. “We just need a little bit more time. We wanted to be fully open to 1C by this week. There are two things that’ve kept that from happening: one is supply, two is demand,” Beshear said, noting that “we are seeing demand go through the roof in every single age group.”
The state also unveiled a new website and hotline — vaccine.ky.gov and 855-598-2246 — to help people determine if they are currently eligible for a vaccine and to direct them to a provider in their area. People who are hearing impaired can call 855-326-4654.
The hotline will be staffed between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Three additional regional vaccine sites will open next week, at Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center in Danville, and at Baptist Health Paducah and Mercy Health-Lourdes Hospital, also in Paducah. With those, there will be 34 locations offering vaccines in Kentucky, including the University of Kentucky’s vaccine program at Kroger Field.
More regional mass vaccination sites will be announced over the next two weeks, Beshear said.
Nearly 47,000 doses had been administered in Lexington as of late last week. That number will swell considerably in the coming weeks. Still, city and local health department officials don’t expect Fayette County’s population to reach herd immunity until at least the fall. Herd immunity is reached when enough of a population contracts the virus, or enough people are immunized to protect against it.
In the meantime, the city is working to launch a broad vaccine outreach campaign to implore as many people as possible to get the vaccine as it becomes available, and to address concerns people may have about the process.
This story was originally published January 28, 2021 at 4:34 PM.
