Nine patients and two or three employees of Western State Hospital (WSH) have COVID-19, Gov. Andy Beshear confirmed Monday in his daily press briefing.
“Western State is being hit pretty hard,” the governor said, adding that three of the WSH patients have been moved to the hospital in Hopkinsville.
Jennie Stuart Medical Center is treating three WSH patients for COVID-19 and one additional WSH patient for a non-COVID-19 condition, Jennie Stuart Health CEO Eric Lee told Hoptown Chronicle.
Because of the outbreak, Western State is not accepting new patients for treatment because of the outbreak, according to the governor. WSH is a psychiatric in-patient facility on U.S. 68 on the east side of Hopkinsville,
Beshear said employees are being screened for symptoms of the respiratory disease before they enter WSH each day.
Kentucky had 54 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Monday, pushing the state’s total since the start of the outbreak to 1,008. Fourteen deaths were reported today, bringing the total to 59.
No deaths from the coronavirus have been reported in Christian County.
The Christian County Health Department updates the local numbers every Tuesday and Friday.
As of April 3, there were 25 confirmed, active cases of COVID-19 in Christian County. Three people who previously tested positive had recovered, health officials said.
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.
