Governor Andy Beshear reported 659 new cases of coronavirus today in what he hopes is a “leveling off or plateau.” The cases come out of 11,217 administered tests. Beshear said the positivity rate is down from yesterday at 5.66%. The total case number is 29,386.
“What we believe we are generally seeing...is a leveling off or at least a significant decrease in the overall escalation of the virus,” Beshear said.
Beshear showed a graph of new coronavirus cases by week. He said the last few weeks showed an increasing escalation of cases.
“If you’re looking at that escalation then next week we should have had an even bigger bump. I believe this is what we are seeing because of facial coverings, that we at least stopped the significant escalation in that last week we’re showing. And we believe we’re going to be somewhere in that zone at the end of this week,” he said.
Beshear said 587 are in the hospital and 110 are in the ICU. He confirmed seven new deaths and said 22 children under 5 years old have the virus.
Beshear asked that people not travel and recommended a 14-day self-quarantine for people who have gone to Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Arizona, Idaho, Texas, Florida, Nevada and Mississippi. These states have positivity rates close to or more than 15 percent.
“We have so many businesses right now and their struggle is not preventing the virus in their facility. It’s somebody bringing it back from vacation,” he said.
In long term care facilities, Beshear confirmed 12 new residents and 18 new staff members have tested positive. He said those facilities have no new deaths. However, five new facilities reported a case.
Beshear said there has been a slight uptick in childcare facilities. Two new facilities reported at least one coronavirus case. Three new staff and four new children have tested positive.
Calloway County Health Department confirmed 11 new cases today. CCHD Director of Nursing Kim Paschall said today was the county’s highest one-day number. She said there’s a variety of reasons for the influx of cases.
“They’re coming from different sources such as travel, work-related, and just basically we can see there’s community spread. That's the big thing. A lot of our cases don’t know how they got it. We just need to stress the mandate of wearing masks, socially distancing and washing hands,” Paschall said.
Beshear said it hasn’t been long enough to know whether his two-week closure of bars and rollback of restaurant capacities to 25% have had an impact on case numbers.
Public Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack said there is still “a lot we don’t know about this disease.” He said people are still only eight months into learning about it.
Stack said the coronavirus can cause various long-term effects, including a multi-organ inflammatory process that can develop in some children.
“And we didn’t know that until months after this disease had affected a lot of other people and had overrun cities because it takes months to develop or show up in these children. It’s after they get over the initial infection and then their immune system goes haywire and starts attacking their own body,” Stack said.
He said these kids could have coronary artery aneurysms and permanent heart and blood vessel damage from various conditions related to the coronavirus.
Stack said young adults could also develop blood clotting disorders and people at any age could develop lung damage.
“There’s a subset of people who get this condition and it’s like you poured Round-Up into their lungs,” he said.
Cabinet for Health and Family Services Executive Advisor Mark Carter gave an update on contact tracing. He said 886 people are currently involved in the contact tracing effort across the state. He said this number is currently sufficient but the state still has capacity within CARES Act funding to add another 290 people.
“If we continue to see the virus at the level it is at currently, I suspect by mid-September we’ll probably be at a full complement of people,” he said.
Carter said most people are being cooperative during the tracing process. He said tracers are getting in touch with roughly 70 to 75% of contacts.
He said tracers see contacts across the board in congregate settings. He said a flare-up in Bell and Harlan counties seems almost completely attributable to travel. He said students returning to in-class settings is also of significant concern.
