The Christian County Health Department reported 14 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, pushing the total since the pandemic began to 1,109.
The total includes 155 active cases and 937 classified as recovered. There have been 17 deaths related to COVID-19 in the county, including two reported on Tuesday.
Slightly more than 10% of the new cases have occurred in the last seven days, and local health officials believe the uptick is attributed at least partly to infections contracted over the Labor Day holiday.
“This is something we also saw after the Fourth of July,” County Health Director Kayla Bebout said in a teleconference Wednesday. “It is the exact same trend.”
Many of the cases have occurred in nursing homes, including Christian Health Center, where 31 residents had an active case of the virus as of Wednesday, the state reported. Other new cases are from teachers, students and staff of local schools, said Bebout.
The public school system returned to in-person instruction the day after Labor Day. On Tuesday, Superintendent Chris Bentzel held a news conference to discuss COVID-19 cases and said he believes the schools are safe.
While 68 students and staff combined have been directed to quarantine since schools opened, only three of those were the result of a contact that occurred in a school setting, said Bentzel. Ten new cases of COVID-19 among students and staff included only four who have been in a school setting, he noted.
However, state officials are encouraging school districts to consider the acceleration of the virus in the entire community, not just the schools, when making decisions about whether to have in-person instruction.
- RELATED: Superintendent says schools are safe, while state guidance urges consideration of community spread
The health department continues to encourage the use of masks, social distancing and frequent hand washing, said spokeswoman Amanda Sweeney.
“In August, the county increased by 330 cases, which is our largest month yet,” Sweeney said in the Wednesday conference. “And for the month of September … we are already at 220 cases.”
Based on the current trend, officials won’t be surprised if September sets a new record for cases in the county, she said.
A new weekly report from the White House Coronavirus Task Force put Christian County among 13 red zone counties in the state. The report is for the week that ended Sept. 11. Communities in the red zone have weekly positive-test rates higher than 10% and more than one new case per 1,000 residents.
The health department reported a positive test rate of 7.9% for September and 8.8% for the past seven days at the Tie Breaker Park test site.
The White House Coronavirus Task Force positivity rate is higher because it takes into account all testing in the county, which in addition to Tie Breaker includes testing at Jennie Stuart Medical Center, FirstCare and physician offices.
Bebout agreed the White House positivity rate indicates a more serious spread of the virus than does the Tie Breaker Park rate.
Sweeney addressed a question about positivity rates and incidence rates.
The positivity rate is the percentage of people testing positive among those tested. The incidence rate is the average number of cases over seven days per 100,000 population. As of Wednesday, Christian County’s incidence rate was 23.1.
Sweeney said the incidence rate could be a better indicator of community spread.
Counties with more than 25 cases per 100,000 people ranked at the highest level of community spread. It is the red level on a four-tier chart created by the state to help school district determine when it is safe to have in-person instruction. At the red level, the recommendation is to switch to remote learning only and return to in-person instruction only after cases fall below 10 per 100,000 people. Counties with 10 to 25 cases per 100,000 are encouraged to consider remote-learning only.
This state chart and the White House chart are unrelated, although both use colors to indicate community spread and use red to indicate the most serious level.
Bebout also addressed questions about the health department’s role and authority with community groups planning events.
The state’s Healthy at Work guidelines dictate size, location and other factors for community events but the local health department is a resource for organizations who need help planning what is feasible and allowed, she said.
In some cases, groups have elected to not hold events when they took into account how they would provide information to the health department for contact tracing if positive cases came out of an event.
“Several people realized the work that will have to go into a lot of these events to make sure they are able to help us with the contact tracing, and that’s a decision after a discussion that we have with them,” she said. “It’s a collaboration to a certain degree that they choose not to do that. But we do not force anybody to shut down anything.”
Jennie Stuart Medical Center spokeswoman Beth McCraw said the hospital was treating eight patients with COVID-19 on Wednesday. Since the pandemic began, the hospital has admitted 99 patients for treatment of the virus, she said.
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.
