CDC says only one Ky. county, Letcher, is at high risk of Covid-19 transmission, but state's rate of new cases still ranks first in U.S.

CDC map, adapted by Kentucky Health News

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Letcher County is the only one in Kentucky with a high risk of Covid-19 transmission, according to the latest federal risk map. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention map, which looks at both new cases and hospital data to determine risk, shows 16 Kentucky counties at medium risk, shown in yellow, and the remaining 103 counties at low risk, shown in green. High-risk counties are orange.

In high-risk counties, the CDC continues to recommend that you wear a well-fitting mask in public indoor spaces, and if you are at high risk of getting very sick, consider avoiding non-essential indoor activities in public where you could be exposed.

If you live in a medium or high-risk county, the CDC advises those who are at high risk of getting very sick to wear a well-fitting mask when indoors and in public and to consider getting tested before having social contact with someone at high risk for getting very sick and consider wearing a mask when indoors when you are with them.

The CDC also has a transmission-level map that shows the level of virus spread in each county, at one of four levels. The map shows Ballard, Caldwell, Metcalfe and Magoffin counties with low transmission levels and 40 counties with moderate levels. The rest have either substantial or high levels of transmission. This data is largely used by researchers and health-care facilities. 

State health officials have encouraged Kentuckians to use the CDC risk map to guide their preventive measures. 

Though Kentucky's map is getting greener, The New York Times again ranks Kentucky's rate of new cases in the last week first in the nation, even with a 7% drop in cases in the last two weeks. 

Asked at his weekly news conference how much responsibility he takes for the state's high infection rate, Gov. Andy Beshear said Kentucky is still reporting Covid-19 data – when so many other states have stopped doing so – as a way to provide accurate information to help Kentuckians make decisions about how they want to protect themselves. 

"Where we are now is, people have the opportunity to make their own decisions based on information that is widely available, based on masks of the highest quality that are available in every community, based on boosters that we can give you if you decide to have one  today, and we need more people to get boosted," Beshear said. 

Earlier, state Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said, "We are solidly now in the living-with-Covid phase." He also cautioned that that doesn't mean Covid-19 is gone.

"We still sadly announced 60 to 80 deaths every week from Covid," Stack noted. "It'll still be the third leading cause of death in Kentucky this year. And we still have more than 300 variants that the World Health Organization tracks across the world, a subset of those are ones of particular concern."

Stack encouraged Kentuckians to get vaccinated and boosted with the latest booster that also protects against the current strains of the virus that are circulating, noting that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and CDC had recently approved the updated Pfizer-BioNTech booster for everyone five and older and the updated Moderna booster for everyone six and older. 

"That is the single most important thing you can do to keep yourself safe from severe illness and death is to get vaccinated," Stack said. 

He and Beshear also encouraged Kentuckians to get their annual flu shot and to stay home when sick. 

In his plea for Kentuckians to get boosted, Beshear also reminded Kentuckians that Thanksgiving is just weeks away where a whole lot of people will get together and provide an opportunity for the virus to spread.