'Functionally 100%' of new coronavirus cases this month have been among the unvaccinated; back-to-work incentive offered

Washington Post chart, adapted by Kentucky Health News; for a larger version, click on it.

By Al Cross

Kentucky Health News

Making what they called the best argument for vaccination against the coronavirus, Gov. Andy Beshear and his health commissioner said Thursday that only 0.08 percent of recent virus cases in Kentucky are in people who have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

At his weekly press conference, Beshear also announced a back-to-work incentive for Kentuckians getting extra unemployment benefits due to the pandemic, and a $763 million allocation of federal pandemic relief funds to child-care centers. Here are the details:

Vaccinations: Health Commissioner Steven Stack said 99.92% of the state's virus cases in the last four weeks, six out of 7,290, were in unvaccinated people. "That is functionally a hundred percent," he said. During the same period, unvaccinated people were 99 percent of those people hospitalized for Covid-19, and 93 percent of the deaths from the disease.

But only 49% of Kentucky's population has had at least one dose of vaccine, and just 42.5% are fully vaccinated, figures similar to states where the Delta variant of the virus is causing more hospitalizations.

"We've got to continue to talk about the vaccines," Beshear said. "The Delta variant's out there, and the threat is very real." He said the 99% figures presented by Stack "ought to be some of the best evidence for everybody who's qualified going out and getting vaccinated."

Stack said the variant, which originated in India and is expected to become dominant in the U.S., is more contagious than others, but only slightly more resistant to vaccines, which are 88% effective against death or severe disease from the variant.

"If you get vaccinated, you have essentially got a 90-percent-plus reduction in your risk for death and serious disease and going in the hospital," Stack said. "The new Delta variant is dangerous; it's more dangerous for younger people than the previous versions. We're gonna see more younger people get hurt. . . . Your risk is incredibly reduced if you get vaccinated." 

Stack noted that new coronavirus cases in Kentucky have declined for seven weeks in a row, much as new cases around the world have dropped for eight straight weeks, and said, "This is the result of vaccination, hands down, pure and simple. Vaccines did this."

State Dept. for Public Health graph, adapted by Ky. Health News; for a larger version, click on it.

Stack noted that the first of three drawings in the state's lottery-style sweepstakes for vaccinated people will be held next week, with the entry deadline Wednesday night. He said 472,938 adults had entered for a chance at $1 million, and 26,636 youth, ages 12-17, had entered for a full postsecondary-education scholarship, five of which will be awarded in each drawing.

He said those numbers create "way better odds" than the state lottery, and he hopes they inspire people to get a shot. "I hope, though, they're even more inspired by the fact that 100 percent of the people getting sick now in Kentucky are ones who are not vaccinated."

Vaccinations are lagging again; the seven-day average is below 10,000 a day. Beshear said signups for the drawings indicate that they have spurred vaccination, but it's hard if not impossible to tell how much. He said Ohio saw a boost when its drawings were announced, and when its first drawing was held.

Asked what the state might do about the possibility of the virus spreading from a free J.D. Shelburne concert Saturday in Spencer County, which has the state's second-lowest vaccination rate, Beshear said he was unaware of the event, but said the county's vaccinations may be under-reported due to ZIP code areas crossing county lines. Stack agreed, but said that even without the anomaly, the county would still have one of the lower vaccination rates.

Unemployment benefits: After weeks of requests from businesses and demands from Republicans, the Democratic governor said the state would give $1,500 each to the first 15,000 Kentuckians who are getting extra unemployment benefits of $300 a week and go back to work for four weeks. Critics have said the federally funded payments, which will expire Sept. 30, are keeping people from going back to work at a time when employers are having difficulty finding workers.

The governor said he has discussed the issue daily with business people, who he said have always thought a back-to-work payment would do more to get people back in the labor force than ending the payments, which some Republican governors have done. "This is meant to be surgical," he said. Details are at btw.ky.gov.

Beshear said the program will cost $22.5 million, which will come from funds the state has yet to spend from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that Congress passed in bipartisan votes last year. He said the parameters were chosen to get one-fourth of those receiving the extra benefit back onto payrolls, and to equal five weeks of the extra benefit, which "gets you real close" to Sept. 30. He said he could still end the benefits before that date, based on his monitoring of the situation and the experience of other states.

State House Speaker David Osborne said the incentive is “extremely insulting to those who have worked throughout this pandemic. It defies logic that they would choose to do so as long as the additional federal payments are available. . . . The fact there are more than a hundred thousand available jobs, many of which already offer starting bonuses, should serve as plenty of incentive without a one-time payment.”

Child care: The money for child care will come from the American Rescue Plan Act, passed with only Democratic votes. A state press release said $470 million will go to "sustainability payments" to child-care providers and $293 million will be used to increase provider payments, improve payment policies, raise wages for early-childhood educators and family child-care homes; and increase "the number of quality child care options for under-served populations."

Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Eric Friedlander said the state will leave the pandemic with more small family providers of child care than it had going in, "so it is possible to work together to get a better spot. . . . I am so happy, and the child-care providers are so happy, that we now understand how important they are. They are vital to all of us getting back to work."

Families can apply for assistance at kynect.ky.gov. Information is also available at local offices of the Department for Community Based Services, where applications are also accepted.

Daily numbers: All major measures of the pandemic in Kentucky continued to decline Thursday. The state reported 204 new cases of the virus, lowering the seven-day rolling average by 7, to 174. The share of Kentuckians testing positive over the last seven days is 1.85%, the lowest on record, and the daily new-case rate over the last seven days is 3.22 per 100,000 residents.

Counties with rates more than double the statewide rate are Bracken, 20.6; Caldwell, 17.9; Hopkins, 16; Webster, 13.2; Graves, 10; Anderson, 9.4; Letcher, 8.6; Simpson, 8.5; Gallatin, 8.1; Morgan, 7.5; Carter, 7.5; Leslie, 7.2; Casey, 7.1; Greenup, 6.9; and Pike, 6.7.

The state recorded four Covid-19 deaths Thursday, bringing Kentucky's toll to 7,200. Deaths have been in single digits for the last 13 days, and no more than four have been reported for the last nine days. Deaths are averaging 3.14 per day over the last seven says and 4.43 a day over the last 14 days. The state has stopped listing individual deaths.