A second local resident in their 20s has been diagnosed with COVID-19, the Christian County Health Department announced Monday afternoon.
The patient, a 21-year-old woman, was seen in Jennie Stuart Medical Center’s emergency room on Sunday. She was tested for the novel coronavirus through the state lab, which provides results in about 24 hours, because she had direct contact with a 24-year-old man, also of Christian County, who is presumed to have COVID-19. His confirmed test result is pending; it is being done by a private lab and the results take longer to confirm than with the state lab. But local officials said Sunday, March 22, he is presumed to have the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus.
County Health Director Kayla Bebout declined to release information about the length of direct contact between the 21-year-old woman and the 24-year-old man, so their relationship was not immediately clear. Direct contact means people are within 6 feet of each other for at least 20 minutes.
The 24-year-old man is an employee of Hopkinsville Community College, the college announced right after the health department released information about his presumptive positive test.
That brings the total number of COVID-19 cases in Christian County to three. Late last week, local officials announced a 61-year-old woman had tested positive.
All three of the Christian County residents are in self-isolation and have not required hospitalization. Bebout has described all there as having “mild symptoms” and being in “good spirits.”
This story will be updated.
(Jennifer P. Brown is the editor and founder of Hoptown Chronicle. Reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org.)
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
