‘We need to be vigilant.’ KY COVID numbers plateau after 11 weeks of declines.
After 11 weeks of consecutive decline, Kentucky’s rate of new COVID-19 cases has plateaued, Gov. Andy Beshear said Monday, as he announced 409 new cases and 22 virus-related deaths.
“It is not good news if we are no longer declining,” Beshear said, noting that a fourth wave of infections is “absolutely possible. We need to be vigilant. We need to be a little bit concerned.”
Of the new case tally, 299 cases were from Sunday and 110 are from Monday. Monday’s daily increase is unusually low because of lab closures over the Easter weekend, Beshear said. Eighty-three cases of a more contagious variant first detected in the United Kingdom have been confirmed in Kentucky.
Starting Monday, people 16 and older in Kentucky became eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine. State and local officials are urging people not to dawdle in signing up, as neighboring states are seeing rising numbers of coronavirus cases and there is no shortage of available doses in the commonwealth.
“Now more than ever it is absolutely critical that we get everyone, especially our young people who now qualify, vaccinated,” Beshear said in a live update. “We are so close to fully protecting one another.”
At least 1,437,557 people in Kentucky have received their initial dose of a vaccine — 104,913 of whom got their first shot last week. Statewide, 41 percent of the people over the age of 16 are immunized, and in Lexington, nearly 28 percent of the population is fully inoculated. Visit vaccine.ky.gov for more information about locations.
While demand for vaccine in Kentucky so far this year has remained high, it has started to wane. There are thousands of available appointments at Kentucky’s nearly 600 vaccination sites, the governor said. For instance, Kentucky Horse Park has close to 1,800 openings over the next week.
“We are already concerned that we may have a little slowing in demand,” Beshear said. “We really need you to get the vaccine.”
Travel restrictions lifted
Beshear said on Monday that he is no longer discouraging fully vaccinated Kentuckians from traveling to other states, following suit with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s move on Friday to loosen domestic travel restrictions.
Like the revised guidance from the federal health agency, Kentuckians who have received both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, can now travel safely within the country, Beshear said, though they should still wear a mask in public around others who might not be vaccinated. Those who travel will not be urged to get tested for the virus before or after their trip, nor do they need to self-quarantine once they return.
“If you’re vaccinated, domestic travel is now OK, though make sure you’re careful when you do it,” he said.
For almost a year, Beshear’s office asked Kentuckians to leave the state only for essential travel. While that recommendation has been rescinded for fully immunized residents, it is still the recommendation for people who are not yet vaccinated, as the state and country are far from reaching herd immunity.
“If you’re not vaccinated, those activities are not safe and we recommend against them,” Beshear said.
Reporting COVID-19 deaths
Of the 22 deaths announced Monday, 13 are from the state’s ongoing audit of all coronavirus deaths. Beshear’s office began double-checking all COVID-19 death certificates in March after his office discovered that hundreds of deaths had gone uncounted late last year, when new infections were surging and health officials were overwhelmed.
Throughout the pandemic, the Beshear administration has been slow in reporting COVID-19 deaths. Between a system put in place to double-check and make sure every death that’s counted was truly caused by COVID-19 and death totals that overwhelmed local health departments this winter, Beshear has continued announcing deaths at a clip that made it appear that even as cases were dropping, deaths were remaining steady.
According to records obtained by the Herald-Leader, deaths have been dropping since December. As of April 2, there were 148 deaths in the month of March, the third lowest of the pandemic after June and March 2020.
The people who were the most vulnerable to COVID-19 were some of the first to get the vaccine which means that even if Kentucky were to see an increase in cases like other states have been experiencing, it’s possible that deaths and hospitalizations wouldn’t be as high as they were in previous surges.
And deaths were high during those surges. The deadliest week of the pandemic was the week of December 20 through December 26, when 367 Kentuckians died of COVID-19. The deadliest day so far was December 23, when 68 Kentuckians died.
Still, the death totals could increase in January, February and March — last week Beshear was still announcing deaths from as far back as November.
This story was originally published April 5, 2021 at 4:38 PM.
