By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today
Kentucky has now reached the half-million mark in COVID-19 cases, according to information released by the Kentucky Department for Public Health on Monday.
A total of 1,301 new cases were reported to state public officials on Monday, which brings Kentucky’s pandemic total to 500,267, since the first positive case was reported in Harrison County on March 6, 2020.
The top 10 counties in terms of new cases were Jefferson 197, Laurel 59, Warren 54, Hardin 40, Daviess 34, Hopkins and Kenton with 33 each, Fayette 31, Graves 29, and Grayson 28.
A total of 104 of Kentucky’s 120 counties are now reported as red zones, meaning an incidence rate of 25 or more cases per 100,000 population. That is up from 98 counties on Friday, and a huge increase from just one county on July 9, one month ago.
The state’s positivity rate, which was 3.10% on July 9, stood at 10.78% on August 9, based on a seven-day rolling average.
The number of Kentuckians in the hospital also is continuing to rise. On Monday there were 1,139 people hospitalized, 331 in the ICU and 158 on a ventilator. There were 976 people in hospitals across the state. Of them, 286 were in the ICU, while 121 were on a ventilator. On July 9, those numbers were 228 in the hospital, 68 in the ICU and 36 on a ventilator.
Fortunately, at this point, the number of deaths has not followed the sharp rise of other numbers over the past month. There were seven new deaths reported Monday, raising to 7,387 the number Kentuckians lost to COVID during the pandemic.
Gov. Andy Beshear is expected to address the continued rise in COVID-19 cases during a press conference scheduled for 4 p.m., Eastern Time, on Tuesday.
