First Kentucky coronavirus patient is ‘fully recovered,’ discharged from UK hospital
The first Kentucky patient with a confirmed case of COVID-19 has “fully recovered,” according to UK HealthCare.
The 27-year-old woman from Harrison County was discharged Friday from UK Chandler Hospital, said Dr. Derek Forster, UK HealthCare Medical Director for Infection Prevention and Control. UK is not currently treating any other positive COVID-19 patients.
The former patient, a Walmart employee in Cynthiana, was admitted in “critical” condition when she tested positive for the novel coronavirus on March 6.
She is the second COVID-19 patient in Kentucky to be discharged from a hospital after being diagnosed with the virus. The other, a 60-year-old man who was being treated at Norton Brownsboro Hospital in Louisville, was discharged earlier this week and is in isolation at home.
Gov. Andy Beshear has said the remaining patients are in stable condition.
Patients must test negative for coronavirus twice within a 24 hour period before they are declared recovered.
As of Friday morning, 118 people have been tested for COVID-19, and 11 of those cases have been positive. Of those, six are from Harrison County, three are from Lexington and two are from Louisville. The six from Harrison County all have linkages, and at least two attend church together, officials have said.
UK HealthCare, the largest hospital system in the state, has a total of 152 isolation beds, where patients with suspected COVID-19 symptoms may be treated. Dr. Mark Newman, executive vice president for health affairs, called this capacity “more than enough ... to meet the need.”
Last weekend, Newman sent an email to UK HealthCare staff notifying them that the hospital system’s supply of personal protective equipment, including face masks, was running “exceedingly low.”
Kim Blanton, director of Infection Prevention & Control and Patient Safety for UK HealthCare, said on Friday those emails were sent “to be sure everybody knew we needed to allocate.”
In part, she said, because, “What we were seeing was people stockpiling and taking them home, and I’m not talking just staff,” Blanton said. “We have people just taking them out of our respiratory etiquette boxes” in “handfuls.”
This story was originally published March 13, 2020 at 2:49 PM.
