‘On fire’ with COVID-19, six KY counties are in the Top 10 nationally for new cases
More than half of the Top 10 counties in the nation with the highest rate of new COVID-19 cases are in Kentucky, according to a new report. Meanwhile, the state has confirmed more than 10,100 new cases of the virus since Saturday, Gov. Andy Beshear announced on Monday.
Of the more than 10,000 new cases, 2,426 were confirmed on Monday, as were 29 deaths, the governor said. The deaths of 39 more people were reported over the weekend.
“COVID is as bad in Kentucky as it has ever been in this pandemic,” Beshear said from the state Capitol. “Right now, sadly, we are one of the hottest states in the country.”
Nationally over the last seven days, six of the top 10 counties with the highest rate of new cases of coronavirus per 100,000 people are in Kentucky, according to data compiled by the New York Times. Perry County, with its 252 cases and 112 people hospitalized with the virus per capita, ranks highest in the nation.
Clay County, which ranks third in the country, is where Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, is helping to launch a vaccine incentive program in hopes of convincing holdouts to get their doses. Roughly 34% of Clay County residents are vaccinated. Other counties in the top 10 include Whitley, Russell, Grayson and Rockcastle counties.
In a news conference earlier on Monday to unveil the vaccine incentive plan — the latest rendition of a pursuit health departments have been making for months — Stivers acknowledged it should’ve been rolled out sooner. “This is probably something that should’ve been done months ago, well before we got into the special session,” he said.
Coronavirus hospitalizations “remain at an all-time high,” Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said; 69% of the state’s 96 hospitals are reporting critical staffing shortages. Beshear begged people to “break the Thanksgiving dinner rule” and forge ahead with “tough conversations that we avoid” and try to convince holdouts they know personally to reconsider their decision not to be vaccinated.
Though the virus is exploding statewide, the General Assembly last week passed a series of bills — and then successfully overrode veto attempts by Beshear — that both limit his executive authority and effectively ban enforcement of a statewide mask mandate, including in child care, pre-Kindergarten and K-12 settings. Individual school districts, however, can opt to enforce universal masking.
Beshear said he is not planning to challenge the legislature’s dissolving of the school mask mandate, though he remains explicit in his recommendation that masking be enforced. “I don’t see a challenge coming from my office. I certainly hope and pray that every school district makes the only decision to protect children. There is one right answer,” he said. As a “state that is on fire with COVID and is going to be at least for a little bit,” districts “cannot keep your kids in school . . . without universal masking.”
More than 27% of Monday’s new cases were in school-age kids 18 and younger. Young people ages 12 to 17 are the least vaccinated age group in Kentucky; only 45% have received at least one dose, followed by 49% of 18- to 29-year-olds.
State health department advice is “unwavering and unequivocal” in its recommendation that schools should enforce universal masking, Stack said. “Never has it been more important to have children wearing masks indoors when they are in school settings.”
On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky penned a letter to each of the state’s school boards and superintendents urging them to enforce masking. Not doing so endangers students with underlying medical conditions and disabilities, who may be more susceptible to contracting the virus, and violates civil rights law, the group contends.
“As long as there are students in your school district who have higher risk for severe illness or even death due to COVID-19, any policy that differs from the existing mask mandate would effectively exclude these students from public schools, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act,” the ACLU wrote.
This story was originally published September 13, 2021 at 4:59 PM.
