Gov. Andy Beshear announced 1,059 new cases of the coronavirus Friday, the third-highest day yet, signaling the third consecutive record-breaking week.
“This is the highest Friday in the last four weeks, and this will be our highest week ever when we finish it,” Beshear said in a news release.
Already, the state is up to 5,938 cases in its reporting week, which has two days to go because it runs from Monday to Sunday. That number includes a backlog of cases that were added from Fayette County Oct. 7. Excluding the backlog, the state has had 4,466 cases this week.
The unadjusted seven-day rolling average of daily new cases is 908. The seven-day average broke 900 on Sunday and has remained above it, peaking at 920 on Tuesday
Beshear continued to implore Kentuckians to wear a face mask, a proven way to decrease the spread of the virus.
“These are just far too many cases. We have to do better. Folks, we really need you to wear your mask,” he said. “We’ve talked a lot about enforcement this week, but the best enforcement is you, making sure that you and your family are wearing them every time you go out. If everybody takes on that enforcement, we will stop this third escalation.”
Deborah Yetter and Grace Schneider of the Louisville Courier Journal looked at how several localities are following Beshear’s appeal to help enforce his mask mandate. They report that “buy-in appears uneven across the state. Enforcement, when carried out, generally has been left to underfunded and overworked health departments. In some communities, leaders report that business owners feel conflicted over confronting customers who ignore the mask edict when their enterprises badly need customers.”
Beshear announced eight more deaths from COVID-19, bringing the state’s death toll to 1,242. The fatalities were a 90-year-old woman from Boyd County; a 73-year-old woman from Daviess County; a 76-year-old man from Harrison County; two women, ages 70 and 74, from Henderson County; an 87-year-old man from Jefferson County; a 48-year-old woman from Logan County; and a 54-year-old woman from McCracken County.
“We continue to see higher months of cases and higher months of deaths,” Beshear said. “We need your help. Be a good part of Team Kentucky.”
Long-term care facilities continue to be hit hard with the virus, with 42 more residents and 62 more staff testing positive for the virus on Friday. The long-term care daily report shows 726 residents and 455 staff have active cases of the disease.
The share of people testing positive for the virus in Kentucky in the past seven days continues to be under 5%. Today it was 4.32%.
Hospitalizations for the disease in Kentucky remain high, with 679 covid-19 patients, including 172 in intensive care.
(Kentucky Health News is an independent news service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.)
