Coronavirus cases top 800 for 4th straight day; as another surge threatens, Beshear urges people to follow the rules and be careful

Department for Public Health map, labeled by KHN; for a larger version, click on it. Get update here.

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Gov. Andy Beshear announced 809 new cases of the novel coronavirus Friday, the first time Kentucky has seen four days in a row with more than 800 new cases each day. And his announcement of 11 more deaths made this week's death count the highest yet, 66 since Sunday. 

Beshear again implored Kentuckians to keep their social gatherings small and follow public-health guidelines as the state heads into the Labor Day weekend and the running of the 146th Kentucky Derby -- without fans at Churchill Downs, but perhaps at many Derby parties. 

Kentucky has been on an elevated, rough plateau of cases for several weeks, and it got there following a surge after the last big holiday, July 4.

“I know this is a big weekend: Derby weekend, even though it’s September, and Labor Day weekend,” Beshear said in a news release. “Traditionally, we’d get together with a lot of people over this weekend. This year, I need you to do it a little differently. Just this one time, probably in your entire life, please keep your gatherings small, 10 people or fewer.”

Today's new cases created new records. The state's unadjusted seven-day total of daily new cases is 5,006, the first seven-day period above 5,000 cases. The seven-day rolling average is 715. 

The good news continues to be that the share of Kentuckians testing positive in the last seven days continues to be under 5 percent, a key threshold for suppressing the virus. Today's positive test rate is 4.70%. It has remained under 5% for 10 days. 

Of today's new cases, Beshear reported that 98 are age 18 and younger, and of those, eight were 5 and under. The youngest was a 2-month-old baby from Jefferson County.

“We’re trying to keep our businesses open and get our economy to bounce back,” said Beshear. “We’re going to get our kids back in school later this month. We’re trying to get high school sports up and going and keep them going. So we really need you to help us on all the other things like wearing a mask, washing your hands frequently and social distancing.”

Friday's deaths were a 61-year-old man from Barren County; an 88-year-old woman from Carroll County; an 82-year-old man from Clinton County; an 82-year-old woman from Hardin County; two men, 72 and 77, from Jefferson County; a 77-year-old woman from Kenton County; a 67-year-old woman from Marion County; a 75-year-old man from Owsley County; a 79-year-old woman from Rockcastle County; and a 64-year-old woman from Warren County.

“I know how much we all want to see our families and friends for this holiday, but for one year, we need to prioritize making sure every person we care about is around to celebrate with us next year,” said Beshear. “We have already lost so many Kentuckians, and I don’t want that loss to be even greater. It will be if we have a spike in cases.”

Beshear extended several health-related executive orders, including his mask mandate and an order that allows pharmacists to dispense 30-day refills. 

Counties with more than 10 new cases Friday were Jefferson, 249; Fayette, 56; Pulaski, 36; Daviess, 26; Madison, 23; Warren, 22; Union, 21; Henderson, 20; Laurel, 16; Boone, 15; Greenup, 14; Kenton, 14; Grayson, 13; Bullitt, 12; Nelson, 12; Hardin, 11; and Shelby, 11.

Hospitalizations for covid-19 in Kentucky remained stable, at 574, with 132 of them in intensive care. Each figure was up six from Thursday.

In long-term-care facilities, 51 more residents and four more employees were found to be infected. At least 310 facilities statewide have had at least one case, and there active cases among 585 residents and 352 employees.

In K-12 schools, the daily report showed 27 new cases among students, raising the active-case total to 300. Seven more employees were added to the case list, making 109 active cases. The total cases reported so far are 459 students and 128 employees.

Kentucky Kernel graph, labeled by Ky. Health News; click it to enlarge

At Kentucky colleges and universities, the state added 51 more students and four more employees to its list, making active-case totals of 710 and 27, respectively. The report was incomplete, or not up to date, or both; for example, no new cases were reported at the University of Kentucky, but the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, which reports on a different schedule, reported 111 new cases, 50 of them at UK. The state report said UK has 390 active cases, but UK's own site, which had date through Tuesday, Sept. 1, said it had 459 active cases.

UK has started testing dormitories' wastewater to detect infection by the virus. "Increasing levels in wastewater could be an early indicator of an outbreak or increased prevalence," UK President Eli Capilouto said in a campus-wide email.

In other covid-19 news Friday:

• The Christian County Board of Education voted 4-1 to approve Supt. Chris Brentzel's recommendation that in-person classes begin Tuesday, while allowing students to opt out, Hoptown Chronicle reports: "Elementary school students will be on a traditional schedule and attend in-person classes five days a week. Middle- and high-schoolers will be on a hybrid schedule. They will be in class two days and have virtual learning the remainder of the week."
• "The pandemic has heightened stress and upset routines" so much that "physicians and researchers are seeing signs it is doing deep damage to people’s sleep," The Washington Post reports. “Coronasomnia,” as some experts call it, could "have profound public-health ramifications — creating a massive new population of chronic insomniacs grappling with declines in productivity, shorter fuses and increased risks of hypertension, depression and other health problems."
• The Louisville Courier Journal reports on what happens to public health when a city has "uncontrolled spread" of the coronavirus. Dr. Sarah Moyer, the city's chief health officer, told Grace Schneider that like a wildfire, extinguishing the spread is nearly impossible "after we have the wildfire going." Louisville Metro's public health officials encourage people who have tested positive for the virus to go ahead and do their own contact tracing by alerting those they were within six feet of for at least 15 minutes in the days before they began to feel symptoms. 
• The Courier Journal's Deborah Yetter tells the story of covid-19 from the perspective of people who have recovered: the administrator of a nursing home that had a big covid-19 outbreak in May that resulted in the loss of 16 residents and one staff member to the disease; a nurse who works on a covid-19 ward; and a physician. Dr. Briones-Prior of U of L Health told Yetter that she is seeing whole families affected by the disease, instead of just the frail and elderly: "It gets into the household, and the whole household gets it."
• University of Louisville Physicians offer tips on how to increase your activity during the pandemic, saying that adding an extra 2,000 steps a day and reducing calories by 100 a day will help you achieve an energy balance that can stop weight gain.