New COVID-19 variant detected at KY nursing home. 1 vaccinated resident hospitalized.
Gov. Andy Beshear announced 819 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Tuesday, including new cases of an unidentified coronavirus variant, along with 24 virus-related deaths, raising the state’s total number of confirmed cases to 417,412 and the death toll to 5,029.
The daily tally of new coronavirus cases is the lowest reported on a Tuesday in at least a month, Beshear said.
The positivity rate continues to hover below 4 percent, at 3.87 percent.
A new variant of COVID-19 has been detected in an Eastern Kentucky nursing home. Both vaccinated and unvaccinated residents have contracted the variant, Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said, but only one vaccinated resident has become sick enough to be hospitalized, compared to four unvaccinated residents.
At this facility, which was not named, 85 percent of residents and 48 percent of staff opted to get a coronavirus vaccine. An unvaccinated person brought in the variant, Stack said, infecting 41 people — 27 residents and 14 staff. Of those who are infected and fully immunized, 30 percent have been symptomatic. Meanwhile, 83 percent of those who aren’t immunized are showing symptoms.
What this means, Dr. Stack said, is that the vaccine is largely preventing serious illness even when faced with an unknown variant. “Vaccination appears to have markedly reduced symptomatic disease,” Stack said. Five residents have been hospitalized, only one of whom is fully inoculated. “Here, too, vaccination appears to have markedly reduced the risk of serious infection and hospitalization,” he said.
State officials don’t yet know exactly which variant it is, but Stack said, “It’s not one of the common variants” that are circulating in the U.K., South Africa and Brazil. State health officials are in the process of genetically sequencing the strain.
The state has already diagnosed multiple cases of the variant that originated from the United Kingdom.
Regardless of which variants are diagnosed in the state, Stack said he hopes this helps hammer home that “increased vaccination uptick among all staff and visitors to nursing homes, and in fact people visiting any vulnerable population, is urgently needed to reduce the risk of introducing COVID-19.”
Congregate living facilities are among the most dangerous setting for rampant virus spread. New infections have markedly dropped over the last two months in nursing homes because of mass immunizations. In those places on Tuesday, there were a combined 207 active cases.
That is not yet the case for Kentucky’s jails and prisons, where immunization of inmates 70 and older will begin next week, Executive Cabinet Secretary J. Michael Brown said. There are 628 active inmate cases and 48 among staff. At least 585 of those cases are at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, where there’s a “serious outbreak,” Brown said.
At least 1,026,047 Kentuckians have received their initial dose of a vaccine. Last week, 165,217 residents got their first dose.
There are 459 people hospitalized with COVID-19, 110 of whom are in intensive care and 59 are on a ventilator.
This story was originally published March 16, 2021 at 4:45 PM.
