State's positive test rate stays below 5% for four days this week, while daily case numbers are on slow uptickHealthy Care

Kentucky School Boards Association map shows compliance with governor's request to delay school opening to Sept 28.

By Melissa Patrick

Kentucky Health News

Gov. Andy Beshear announced Friday that Kentucky has 792 new coronavirus cases, continuing a recent uptick in daily case numbers, but lower positive test rate of 4.5 percent. 

“We still have a whole lot of cases in Kentucky which means a number of people get sick and we lose a number of people, too,” Beshear said in a news release. “The good news is our positivity rate continues to decline. If we keep wearing these masks and we keep doing the work, we can get this to a manageable level to get our kids back in school and get back to more of our old lives.”

This is the fourth day this week the share of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus in the last seven days has been under 5%, the level that puts states in the White House Coronavirus Task Force "yellow zone."

The rolling seven-day average for daily new cases is 658, the fourth highest total of the pandemic. Unadjusted case totals for the Saturday-to-Friday week, which are used by the White House task force, were 4,605, well above the 1 per 1,000 residents that puts states in the task force's "red zone" for cases. 

People 18 and younger accounted for 114 of the new cases; 27 of those were 5 or younger. The youngest was a 1-month-old from Green County. 

Beshear started regularly announcing children's case numbers after getting resistance to his limits on child-care-center capacity, and his recommendation that schools delay in-person classes until Sept. 28 to help get the virus under control. He is expected to make an announcement on Monday about new child-care rules. 

The state's daily K-12 school report shows 14 more students and nine more staff have tested positive for the virus, with 99 students  and 40 staff having active cases.  

The universities and colleges report shows 175 new student and five new staff have tested positive for the virus; active cases involve 481 students and 15 employees. The University of Kentucky had the highest number of new cases, 118, followed by Union College at Barbourville with 26. 

Beshear reported eight more covid-19 deaths Friday, raising the state's total to 918. They were of an 85-year-old woman and an 86-year-old man from Christian County; a 69-year-old woman from Barren County; a 94-year-old woman from Carroll County; a 78-year-old woman from Scott County; a 58-year-old woman from Taylor County; a 73-year-old man from Union County; and a 92-year-old man from Warren County. 

“Again, it’s been a hard month. It’s going to probably be an even harder September,” said Beshear.  “Make sure that you’re praying for these families.”

Beshear reminded Kentuckians on Monday that with a 2% death rate from the virus, weeks with more than 4,000 cases, as the state has now seen for three weeks running, will result in the loss of 80 people  to the virus, most of them weeks after the cases are reported. 

Counties with more than 10 new cases Friday were Jefferson, 193; Fayette, 91; Madison, 56; Warren, 34; Christian and Rowan, 28 each; Daviess, 18; Kenton and Pulaski, 17 each; Green, 15; Hardin, 13; and Bullitt, 12. 

In other covid-19 news Friday:

• The daily report showed 572 Kentuckians are currently hospitalized with covid-19 and 158 are in intensive care.
• Lexington, which follows a different reporting schedule than the state, reported 100-plus cases of coronavirus on the second consecutive day for the second time, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.  
• Tina Ryan, school nurse at East Calloway Elementary, part of Calloway County Schools, one of a few districts that have opened to in-person learning, voiced her concerns to Liam Niemeyer of Ohio Valley Resource. Not only are children are asymptomatic carriers of the virus, "She worries about parents and families not following covid-19 guidelines and then sending their kids to her school," Niemeyer reports. "She worries about her students with chronic illnesses who could be more vulnerable, across the hundreds of students she cares for in multiple schools." .But despite those worries, Ryan said "I just feel like that kids, physically, mentally, socially, they need to be back in school. It’s time to be back. They want to be back. And again, if they don’t, if the parents choose not to, that’s their option.”
  
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  The state has made little progress eliminating its backlog of unemployment claims, despite "an expensive, no-bid contract" with a national accounting firm to provide employees to do the work, Chris Otts reports for WDRB: "Kentucky has about the same amount of backlogged unemployment claims today – 73,642 – as in early July when Ernst & Young was beginning its short-term contract work.

from KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS https://ift.tt/3lrTFfz State's positive test rate stays below 5% for four days this week, while daily case numbers are on slow uptickHealthy Care

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