New Kentucky coronavirus deaths top 50 as new cases remain stable at 2,592
Gov. Andy Beshear announced 2,592 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Wednesday, along with 51 additional deaths, raising the state’s confirmed case total to 369,519 and the death toll to 3,863.
While the state’s new case count is up about 100 compared with this time last week, “it’s significantly less than the two weeks before,” the governor said. “That is positive in that we have significantly less virus than three weeks ago.”
Seven of the deaths announced Wednesday were people age 60 and under. Increasingly, fewer of the state’s virus-related deaths are people in long-term care facilities, since that population has largely been immunized. Beshear announced 28 new cases among residents and 15 cases among staff, bringing their active number of cases to 729. That’s a marked reduction from even just a month ago. In late December, for instance, there were five-times as many active cases among nursing home residents.
“If there is a positive in our deaths, which are too high, it’s that a smaller and smaller share are long-term care residents,” he said.
Last month, Beshear said CVS Health and Walgreens, federally contracted to administer doses in long-term care facilities, had a surplus of vaccine. Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack on Wednesday said close to 13,000 of those Pfizer-BioNTech doses were reallocated to other people in priority groups 1A and 1B.
Hospitalizations and the state’s positivity rate remain steady.
The statewide positivity rate is down slightly, to 8.53 percent. There are 1,340 people hospitalized with COVID-19, including 368 in intensive care and 171 on a ventilator.
“Please, let’s not surrender now,” Beshear said. “Let’s not fumble at this late stage.”
In the state’s jails and prisons, there are 55 active cases among staff and 270 active cases among inmates. On Jan. 20, there were 2,227 active inmate cases and 169 active staff cases, Executive Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown said Wednesday. Inmates are not yet slotted in any of the state’s early vaccine priority phases.
Along with long-term care facility residents and staff, the governor said Kentucky is on track to “become the fastest state to vaccinate our teachers.”
Immunizations of K-12 personnel are supposed to be largely complete by the end of this week, Beshear has said, touting it as the best way to get teachers and students back in the classroom. It’s not yet clear whether the state will meet that goal.
With teachers largely vaccinated, “that means there’s going to be an expectation to get our classrooms open in some form or fashion,” he said, though there can’t be a “one-size-fits-all approach.” Even when schools do return primarily to in-person learning, districts will need to offer equitable virtual learning options for the rest of this school year, Beshear said.
This week, schools are reporting at least 815 new cases of the virus in students and teachers. At least 2,101 students and 327 teachers are currently in quarantine, according to state Department for Public Health data.
This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 4:42 PM.
