‘Another alarming day.’ Nearly 3,000 new KY COVID-19 cases, the largest since Jan. 23
As many K-12 schools across Kentucky returned to in-person learning on Wednesday, Gov. Andy Beshear announced 2,961 new cases of COVID-19 and a positivity rate above 11%, calling it “another alarming day.”
It’s the largest single-day increase in new cases since January 23. Unvaccinated Kentuckians continue to drive community spread across the state, the governor reiterated this week. Between March 1 and August 5, 92% of the state’s 70,415 new cases, 91% of all coronavirus-related hospitalizations and 89% of deaths were among the unvaccinated.
As cases escalate, a rise in hospitalizations and deaths follows. If those rates continue doubling every two weeks as they have been, “we expect to have the most Kentuckians hospitalized in two weeks than we’ve had at any time during the pandemic,” Beshear said.
On Wednesday, 1,327 people were hospitalized with the virus — an increase of 76 people over the last day — while 363 are in intensive care (up 24 people) and 169 are on a ventilator (up one). The positivity rate, rising for 48 days straight, hit 11.22% on Wednesday.
Fourteen deaths were announced — the highest single-day increase since early June — including a 44-year-old woman in Fayette County and a 31-year-old woman in Jefferson County. All but 15 of Kentucky’s 120 counties are in the red zone, where community spread is considered at peak severity. Roughly 54% of the state population is at least partially vaccinated.
On Tuesday, Beshear enacted a universal mask mandate, regardless of vaccination status, for all students, staff and visitors over the age of 2 in child care, pre-Kindergarten and K-12 settings for at least the next 30 days.
“Masks work. Not requiring masks doesn’t work,” he said in a short video Wednesday morning defending his emergency order and asking people not to believe the disinformation circulating on social media. “You cannot get an MD or even a BS on Facebook, you can just read a lot of BS on Facebook.”
