All Ky. adults can get booster; new-case rate and hospitalizations up over 2%; cases in unmasked Warren County schools jump

New York Times map, adapted by Ky. Health News, shows cases increasing with colder weather.
To enlarge any image, click on it; for the interactive version of this map, with local data, click here.

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Gov. Andy Beshear has signed an executive order to allow all Kentucky adults to get a Covid-19 booster shot, citing the recent upticks in coronavirus cases and Covid-19 hospitalizations as the reason for this change. 

“Folks, you really need to get vaccinated and get this booster, and now it should be fairly easy. It’s going to make you much safer over the next several months,” Beshear said in a news release. 

Previously, boosters were officially available only to people 65 and older, adults at high risk of severe Covid-19, and those with high exposure to the virus through their jobs or living situation.

At least five other states (Arkansas, California, Colorado, New Mexico and West Virginia) have expanded eligibility, the release says. So has New York City. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 booster shots for all adults this week, The New York Times reports.

Under Beshear's order, all adults in Kentucky may get a Covid-19 booster six months after their second Moderna or Pfizer shot, or two months after the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 

As of Wednesday, more than 437,000 Kentuckians had received a booster and 2.6 million, or 59% of the total population, had received at least one shot. 

 The state reported 2,195 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, raising the seven-day average by 31 (2.2 percent), to 1,431. Of Wednesday's new cases, 29% are in people 18 and younger. 

The share of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus jumped more than half a percentage point, to 6.24% from 5.73% on Tuesday. The rate is the highest since Oct. 21. Beshear has cautioned that the rate is not the best measurement of the pandemic because it tends to rose when there is an increase in disease in communities because more people get tested.

A more reliable metric, the seven-day infection rate, is 27.94 daily cases per 100,000 residents. That's a noticeable jump from Tuesday's 27.08. Counties with rates more than double that rate are Magoffin, 98.7; Breckinridge, 82.3; Robertson, 81.3; Bourbon, 72.2; Monroe, 61.7; Powell, 61.3; and Harrison, 58.2.

Seventy-three of the state's 120 counties have rates over 25, considered a high level of transmission and represented by red on the state infection map. That's six more than Tuesday. 

The New York Times ranks Kentucky's infection rate 25th among the states and says it has increased 16% in the last 14 days.

Kentucky hospitals reported 757 Covid-19 patients, 18 more than Tuesday (up 2.4%); 200 of them in intensive care (down 4); and 100 on mechanical ventilation (down 15).  Eight of the state's 10 hospital regions are using at least 80% of their intensive-care beds, five of them more than 90%. 

Kentucky reported 36 more Covid-19 deaths Wednesday, raising the pandemic death toll to 10,354. 

Other pandemic news Wednesday: "Active Covid-19 cases among Warren County Public Schools students have more than tripled since the district dispensed with its universal masking policy Nov. 1," the Bowling Green Daily News reports. The district has 73 cases; Bowling Green Independent Schools, "which has chosen to keep its universal masking requirement for at least one more month – reported 17 active student cases on its district dashboard Tuesday morning."

To increase immunization among young adults, "Some public health experts are turning to ad campaigns that feature 20-somethings talking about their struggles with fatigue, memory loss and other symptoms associated with long Covid," the term used to describe lingering effects after basic recovery from the disease, reports Derek Hawkins of The Washington Post. "The testimonials are devastating. One 20-year-old chokes up as she describes how she can't remember first dates with her boyfriend, even after looking at photos."

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Bowling Green issued a report on the economic cost of President Biden's vaccine-or-test mandates in Kentucky, saying 677,458 Kentucky workers, or 34% of the state's workforce, are at risk of losing their jobs if they do not comply with the mandates for employers of more than 100. It says 35% of retail workers risk losing their job if they resist the mandate. A report for all 50 states will be released tomorrow, said the release from the Republican senator, who is seeking re-election.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has suspended enforcement of the mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees after a federal appeals court upheld a stay of it last week, The Hill reports.

As virus cases rise in 16- to 20-year-olds, state will report numbers at universities; this is 2nd straight day with 12 deaths

Chart used by Health Commissioner Stack Aug. 6. He did not provide an update.

By Mary Meehan and Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Gov. Andy Beshear announced Wednesday that Kentucky’s colleges and universities will be required to report coronavirus cases on campus just as other schools in Kentucky, and the state will publish the numbers.

Beshear said at his daily briefing that parents and people living in communities with universities have a right to know the level of infection. He said the information would also give health departments discern campus clusters from community spread.

The theme of infection among young people ran through the briefing. Beshear noted that of the 655 new coronavirus cases, 91 were under the age of 18, and five were 18-year-olds in Warren County, where the county and Bowling Green school systems plan to open Monday. He said several other counties also had cases of school-age children.

There was some slightly good news in the data. The share of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus in the last seven days is 5.4%, the lowest in two weeks.

Perhaps the starkest statistic was 12 more covid-19 deaths, repeating Tuesday's number. Beshear noted several counties with their first deaths, and said the state is seeing the effects of the July "spike" in cases, apparently the first time he has called it that.

"Losing 24 people over the last two days, that’s very serious to me," he said, adding that Kentuckians need to realize the severity of the virus. He said it has killed more of them than in several wars, and they must be committed to doing the right thing and making smart choices. 

Health Commissioner Steven Stack said he understood that people are eager for their children to return to a more normal routine. But, he said, that’s not possible.

“There’s a bad disease out there. We have no vaccine, cure or treatment,” said Stack, a physician. “When it hits people, it hits them hard.”

The infection of young people has come to the forefront as some schools reopen and parents pressure officials to allow the fall sports season to begin. Stack said, "I realize sports are like religion to a lot of folks but we can’t fantasize our way to believe what we want to believe and that harm won’t happen."

The fate of many high-school sports is to be decided at 10:30 a.m. Thursday during a special meeting of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Board of Control. Jared Peck reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader that the board will discuss whether to shift or alter seasons as the pandemic worsens. Fall sports are set to begin normal practice Aug. 24. Soccer, volleyball, field hockey and cross country would begin play as soon as Sept. 7. Football games would kick off Sept. 11.

Data debate: State Senate President Robert Stivers said at a Senate Republican event that Stack and the state's chief epdemiologist, Douig Thoroughman, told a legislative committee last week that they don't know if the data they release about the coronavirus is accurate. "Think about that," Stivers said. Are we creating false senses of security if they’re reported too low?"

Thoroughman told the Program Review and Investigations Committee that the positive-test rate isn't perfect because some testing labs don't report negative results, but the rate is reported "because there is a huge clamoring for it." He also said the state has found a need to show more accurate figures than those reported by the federal government, which are generally 2 to 3 percentage points higher because it misses many negative cases due to the different ways labs can report. Also, Stack has said the federal numbers include all positive tests for the same person, but the state "de-duplicates" them.

Beshear, asked about Stivers' remark, said the state takes steps to ensure the data is accurate, but some people are intent on maintaining the skepticism. “You got data from us that shows we are in a concerning place, you’ve got data from the White House, that is similar so I guess the Senate president disagrees with the Trump administration,” he said.

Beshear usually refers to "the White House," meaning its Coronavirus Task Force, where Dr. Deborak Birx is the response coordinator. He dropped her name in dismissing Stivers: "Senate leadership, they are not making decisions with Dr. Birx, they are not making decisions with Dr. Stack, they are making decisions over Dr. Pepper.”

The governor concluded his briefing by saying, “We can beat this but not through denial or rationalization . . . I’m not making Democratic decisions; I’m not making Republican decisions; I’m making public-health decisions to help our people.”

In other covid-19 news Wednesday:

• Beshear announced that the state is applying for a federal grant to extend additional unemployment assistance. He said the jobless will receive $400 on top of their regular benefits, retroactive to July 26, when the original $600 weekly bonus benefit ended. The grant will cover three weeks of benefits, he said, but because of complications in obtaining and releasing the money, people likely won’t see a check until early September. 
• The Washington Post reports a growing movement challenging anti-maskers: “In a country stumbling to control a rampant and deadly virus, masks are effective and popular weapons. Three-quarters of Americans favor requiring people to wear face coverings in public to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, including 89 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of Republicans, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in July.” The story notes that while majorities support masks, anti-mask forces have been much more vocal.
• The Herald-Leader reports on what it's like for kids with covid-linked multisystem inflammatory syndrome, with one parent saying it was like a trip "through hell." . Last week, Thoroughman told the legislative panel that seven Kentucky children have been diagnosed with this syndrome, but none have died from it.
• "The World Health Organization warned Tuesday that young people are becoming the primary drivers of the spread of the novel coronavirus in many countries, a worrisome trend experts fear may grow in the United States as many colleges and schools begin to reopen," William Wan and Moriah Balingit report for the Post.
• Research from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, looked at the association between the timing of emergency declarations and school closings, and found that each day of delayed intervention lead to a 5 to 6% increase in risk of death. “Our analyses demonstrate that states that issued emergency declarations earlier helped curb the spread of the disease. These results confirm how important it is to implement social distancing measures early to reduce covid-19 deaths.” lead author Nadir Yehya said in a news release.

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