Positive-test rate goes up for 10th day in a row, exceeds 3.5%

Kentucky Health News graph from state Department for Public Health seven-day averages

By Al Cross

Kentucky Health News

The share of Kentuckians testing positive for the coronavirus in the last seven days went up for the 10th straight day Friday, to 3.51%.

“Today’s report shows why it’s so important for every Kentuckian to get their shot of hope and help us meet the 2.5 million vaccine Team Kentucky Vaccination Challenge,” Gov. Andy Beshear said in a press release. “We have come so far in this fight, but it isn’t over. There are more than half a million Moderna and Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines available in Kentucky right now, and it just takes a few minutes to find yours,” at vaccinemap.ky.gov.

The state reported 714 new cases of the virus Friday. That lowered the seven-day rolling average by four, to 610.

The statewide rate of daily new cases rose for the eighth straight day, to 12.3 per 100,000 residents. The state's rate ranks 35th among the states, according to The New York Times' coronavirus data tracker.

Counties with rates more than double the statewide rate were Bracken, 72.3 per 100,000; Lewis, 49.5; Bath, 43.4; Harlan, 41.7; Wolfe, 37.9; Morgan, 35.4; Mason, 33.5; Bell, 29.6; and Powell, 25.4.

Counties with 10 or more new cases were Jefferson, 114; Fayette, 45; Warren, 32; Kenton, 23; Daviess, 22; Christian, 19; Bell, 18; Boone, Laurel and Oldham, 17; Madison, 13; Harlan, McCracken, Morgan and Scott, 12; Boyle and Hardin, 11; and Bracken, Mercer and Pulaski, 10.

The state added 15 more fatalities to its list of Covid-19 deaths, 10 from regular health-department reports and five from the ongoing audit of death certificates.

The regularly reported fatalities, half of them from April, were a Boone County man, 72; a Daviess County woman, 56; a Fayette County man, 95; a Greenup County man, 77; two Jefferson County men, 63 and 77; a Kenton County man, 55; a Pike County woman, 88; and two Pike County men, 69 and 90.

The audit deaths were in October (a Grant County woman, 81); December (a Boone County woman, 64) and January (a Boone County man, 67; a Grant County man, 74; and a Marshall County woman, 80).

In other pandemic news Friday:

• The state Supreme Court will hear on June 10 both cases involving new laws passed to limit Beshear's emergency powers, the Lexington Herald-Leader's Jack Brammer reports. In one case, Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd blocked all three laws; in the other, Scott Circuit Judge Brian Privett exempted from Beshear's orders five bars that filed a suit based on those laws, but the Court of Appeals stayed his injunction Thursday, Brammer reports.
• Wearing a medical-procedure mask under a cloth mask "produced marked improvements" in filtering efficiency, according to a study published in JAMA Online. Wearing a procedure mask over a cloth mask produced only "modest" improvements, the study found.
• The U.S. and other countries will probably need to plan booster shots and annual vaccinations against the corinavirus, the CEO of Pfizer and David Kessler, President Biden’s chief science officer for pandemic response, told a House subcommittee hearing, The Washington Post reports.
• A study at the University of Pennsylvania found that nine dogs were able to identify positive coronavirus samples with 96% accuracy on average after three weeks of training. "Researchers say using dogs can help catch people who are infected and don’t know it — otherwise known as asymptomatic carriers — before they spread the virus to others," Katie Camero of McClatchy reports. "This method is also cheaper than traditional testing practices."
• Federal officials announced they will spend $1 billion from the latest relief package to help boost genomic sequencing to find variants of the virus, including $240 million that will be distributed among state governments in May, Politico reports.
• "The pandemic poses an extinction-level threat to shopping malls and their department-store anchors," the Post reports.
• "Swindlers are trying to exploit a new federal program that pays up to $9,000 to assist with funeral costs for Covid-19 victims," the Post reports.