A dozen Ky. counties are seeing high COVID-19 community levels. See the latest CDC map
Kentucky is seeing the earliest warning signs of a holiday surge in COVID-19 cases two weeks after Thanksgiving, Gov. Andy Beshear acknowledged Thursday.
“We’re seeing, I believe, some post-Thanksgiving bump and a rise in COVID cases,” Beshear said during his weekly news conference from Frankfort.
The latest update from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a dozen Kentucky counties are experiencing high community levels of COVID-19, a metric that tracks the rate of new cases and the local impact on hospitals.
The CDC determines community levels based on new cases per 100,000 people (seven-day total), new COVID-19 hospital admissions for every 100,000 people (seven-day total) and the percentage of inpatient beds taken up by COVID-19 patients (a seven-day average).
Per CDC guidance, people living in the following counties should mask up while indoors in public spaces: Ballard, Bourbon, Carlisle, Crittenden, Graves, Hickman, Livingston, Lyon, Marshall, McCracken, Nicholas and Pike counties.
Another 44 Kentucky counties are experiencing medium community levels of COVID-19, where CDC recommendations say people at high risk of getting very sick should wear a high quality mask or respirator, like an N95, when indoors in public. That recommendation also extends to people who are in a household or have social contact with high-risk individuals, like an older relative you live with, the CDC said.
The remaining 64 Kentucky counties are at low COVID-19 community levels, per the CDC’s latest update Thursday evening.
As of Dec. 5, the latest date for which state COVID-19 data is available, Kentucky saw 5,751 additional virus cases over the course of the reporting week.
There were 28 additional COVID-19 deaths statewide over that period. That brings Kentucky’s total number of deaths since the pandemic began to 17,530.
The commonwealth’s overall positivity rate, calculated using only PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests submitted during the last seven days, stood at 8.14% as of Dec. 5.
While he acknowledged what appeared to be the beginnings of a holiday case surge, Beshear also sought to frame it as a milder one than what the state has seen in the last few years.
“It is nowhere near what we saw each of these holidays the last couple of years. This means COVID has fundamentally changed, and our highs are going to be a lot lower and that’s a very good thing for all of us,” Beshear said Thursday.
COVID-19 cases in the state continue to fluctuate up and down, which Beshear said is evidence Kentucky is at a “general plateau” with the virus.
Community transmission of the virus is still either high or substantial across most of Kentucky, however, according to CDC data.
COVID-19 in Fayette County
Fayette County is currently experiencing a low community level of COVID-19, per the latest CDC update to its data tracker Thursday.
As of Dec. 7, the CDC said the county added 280 cases of the disease, while the positivity rate fell by roughly half a percentage point to 6.95%.
The latest report from the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, reporting from Nov. 24 to Dec. 2, shows the county added 434 cases and one new death.
Fayette County has had at least 116,945 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began and 694 deaths.
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