Kentucky sees uptick in COVID cases among children. See latest CDC community levels
Students are now back in their classrooms for the start of a new school year across Kentucky, and the commonwealth is seeing a slight uptick in positive COVID-19 cases among children, Gov. Andy Beshear announced Wednesday.
“It continues to spread across Kentucky,” Beshear said of the virus during his weekly press conference. “We saw a small increase in the number of reported cases, including among many school-age children.”
New figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released Thursday, show COVID-19 is still spreading widely in Kentucky.
The majority of counties, 70, are still experiencing high COVID-19 community levels.
Fayette County is among that group, though with a slightly lower positivity rate than last week, when it was 19.89%. It stands at 18.26%, as of Thursday.
On the other hand, eight counties are at low levels, slightly fewer than last week’s total. The eight counties are Boone, Kenton, Campbell, Owen, Anderson, Taylor, Union and Fulton.
The 42 remaining counties fall into the medium zone for community levels of COVID-19.
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Kentucky’s positivity rate remains high, somewhere between 20% and 25%, the CDC says. That said, public health experts have cautioned against the reliability of that metric as represents an undercount because of the prevalence of at-home testing.
A quick look at some other seven-day metrics for Kentucky from the CDC, current as of Thursday:
New cases: 14,619
Deaths: 17
New hospital admissions: 112.8 (seven-day moving average)
FDA approves redesign of COVID vaccine for subvariants
Wednesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration signed off on new COVID-19 booster shots specifically designed to target the virus’ highly contagious subvariants, and the jabs could be made available as soon as this week, The New York Times reported.
The new boosters target the original coronavirus strain and fast-spreading strains like BA.5.
People ages 12 and older are eligible to get the shots as long as they’ve been fully vaccinated – regardless of whether they received the first booster dose. Their last shot must have been at least two months ago, however.
“It looks like they may be available as soon as next week,” Beshear said Wednesday of the boosters. “We will be looking for more information as the FDA puts it out.”
Kentucky sees increase in cases among children
According to the Kentucky Department of Health’s weekly summary, dated Aug. 29, there were 5,362 new COVID-19 cases among individuals who are ages 18 and younger.
Beshear said they were part of a small increase in cases the state was seeing.
“We continue to recommend that everyone 6 months of age or older stay up to date on their vaccinations and receive any booster doses,” he said.
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