More than 4,000 new COVID-19 cases in Kentucky Friday as positivity rate nears 12%
Gov. Andy Beshear reported 4,009 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Friday — the tenth-highest single-day increase since the state confirmed its first case in March of 2020 — and a dozen more deaths.
“I don’t know how else to put this,” the governor said in a short video update. “This is getting your friends, your family members, your neighbors, sick. Some of them aren’t going to make it. I need you to do your part. Please care about each other more than you care about political arguments. Please get vaccinated.”
Half of Friday’s new cases were diagnosed in people under the age of 39, while 34% were in people age 29 and younger, and just over 16% were in kids and teenagers under the age of 19, according to the Kentucky Department for Public Health. The rate of Kentuckians testing positive, a leading indicator of how severe community spread is, hit 11.83% on Friday — the highest since January 15. The 12 deaths confirmed included a 31-year-old resident of Warren County and a 37-year-old in Henderson County, Beshear said.
While Kentucky is on track to report its seventh consecutive week of increasing cases, hospitalizations also continue to climb exponentially, as beds fill to capacity across the state. Another 53 people became sick enough with coronavirus to be hospitalized between Thursday and Friday, bringing the total number of COVID-19-positive patients to 1,424. Of those, 391 were in intensive care (34 more than Thursday) and 185 were on a ventilator (up 16). A month ago, on July 13, a total of 244 people were hospitalized with coronavirus, 63 were in the ICU and 26 were on a ventilator.
Roughly 54% of Kentuckians are at least partially vaccinated. Beshear reiterated his plea for more people to make that choice.
“We’ve got to prove that we are more about one another than we care about things we see on cable news,” he said.
This story was originally published August 13, 2021 at 5:26 PM.
