By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today
There was a sharp drop in new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Sunday, but the number of deaths rose, as did the state’s positivity rate.
There were 3,232 new cases of the coronavirus reported to state officials. That is 1,008 less than the 4,240 reported on Saturday and raises the total number of cases in Kentucky since the first one was reported last March 6 to 303,625, after five duplicates were removed from the last report.
Five counties had more than 100 cases on Sunday: Jefferson with 610, Fayette 238, Morgan 152, Boone 131, and Kenton 124. The remainder of the top ten counties were Warren 98, Daviess 82, Campbell 73, Madison 73 and Bullitt 58.
It should be noted that quite often Sunday cases show sharp drops from Saturday, since some labs are closed or don’t report on the weekend. Those numbers will likely show up on Monday or Tuesday.
Of Kentucky’s 120 counties, 117 had at least one new case. The only exceptions were Hickman, Mason, and Owsley counties.
There were also 25 new deaths reported on Sunday, which was an increase from 20 on Saturday, and increases the pandemic total to 2,901. Information on the latest victims’ ages and counties were not available.
Kentucky’s positivity rate has continued its week-long increase and stood at 12.45% on Sunday based on a seven-day rolling average.
Hospitalizations saw a decrease, with 1,713 Kentuckians in the hospital, down from 1,752 on Saturday. There are currently 380 in the ICU and 212 on a ventilator.
According to state health officials, there were 8,930 inpatient beds occupied for all causes across the state with 4,334 available, an occupancy rate of 67.3%. 1,198 ICU beds were occupied and 605 available, meaning a 66.4% occupancy rate. There were 609 ventilators used and 1,161 available, indicating a 34.4% usage.
There were 119 counties in the red zone Sunday, meaning their incidence rate is more than 25 per 100,000 population. Hickman County at 16.3, is the lone exception, and is in the orange zone.
Taking a wider view, Johns Hopkins University reports 90,143,875 positive cases worldwide, with 1,932,266 deaths. In the United States alone, there have been 22,360,840 confirmed cases, and 373,797 deaths.
To view the full daily COVID-19 report for Kentucky, which includes such information as the red zone counties and red zone recommendations, testing locations, the weekly White House Coronavirus Task Force reports for Kentucky, details on school reopening, executive orders, vaccine distribution, and other information on the state’s pandemic response, go to kycovid19.ky.gov.
