By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today
The number of Kentucky counties that have a low community level of COVID-19 saw a large jump in the weekly map that was released Friday by the Kentucky Department for Public Health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention breaks the state down by each county based on whether they have a high, medium or low community level of COVID, which is indicated on their map as either red, yellow, or green, respectively.
According to the Feb. 10 map, Kentucky currently has five counties that are red, or high, community levels of COVID. That is down from 11 last week, and the same as two weeks ago. Forty are yellow, which is a reduction of one from last week and eight less than two weeks ago. The remaining 75 counties are green, up from 68 last week and 66 from two weeks ago.
Kentucky’s positivity rate this week is 9.93%, which is based on positive tests compared to the total testing performed. But according to state public health officials, the number of positive cases is likely undercounted, since many people who have a positive result from a home test do not report it to their local health department if they do not require medical treatment or were asymptomatic.
As a result, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is updating its easy step-by-step guide to include information about reporting the results of your over-the-counter at-home COVID-19 test result to the website MakeMyTestCount.org.
The FDA encourages you to voluntarily and anonymously report your positive or negative test results every time you use an at-home COVID-19 test. You can report your test result at the website or by using an app or other digital option for self-reporting that may be included with your test. Report each test result only one time.
The data from MakeMyTestCount.org can help public health departments know how fast the virus is spreading. This valuable test data helps public health departments assess and modify their response to COVID-19 in their local communities, states, or across the country.
For more information on Kentucky’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, community levels based on the CDC determinations and more, you can go to the Kentucky Department for Public Health’s website, at http://kycovid19.ky.gov/.
