COVID cases in Kentucky have hit a new record high, with Gov. Andy Beshear calling last week “the worst week ever” for infections in the Commonwealth.
From Aug. 30 to Sept. 5 the state reported 30,680 new cases of COVID, with 13,000 of those recorded in just four days.
And as of Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists every single county in Ohio and Kentucky — including counties around Cincinnati on both sides of the Ohio River — as having high risk for COVID-19 transmission. All counties on the CDC’s data tracker are red, indicating the most severe situation.
“We continue to see more cases than is safe by any means,” Gov. Beshear said. “Our hospitals continue to be pushed to the brink. If we have one bad week, we can very quickly run out of ICU beds.”
Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Eric Friedlander said that as of Aug. 27, hospitalizations were up 56% from the week before and the community transmission rate was up by 524%. According to data, 88% of those cases are linked to the highly transmissible Delta variant.
As of Friday, 2,365 Kentuckians are in the hospital, 661 are in the ICU and 425 are on ventilators. More than 1,500 of new COVID cases are in those 18 and younger. Comparatively, on July 1, there were 201 Kentuckians in the hospital, 55 in the ICU, 25 on ventilators, and 47 of the 215 new cases reported then were in those 18 and younger.
“We have never seen the like of this in our lifetimes, and we must come together and do everything possible to clip further spread of this virus,” Friedlander said.
Things have escalated in Morehead, Kentucky to the point that Beshear has called in the National Disaster Medical System — “a medical officer, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, supply officer, respiratory therapist, four registered nurses and three paramedics,” according to a release — to St. Claire Regional Medical Center. The team will be there through Sept. 17 to deal with the spike in COVID cases by assisting current staff and helping to open more hospital beds.
Beshear has also called in the Kentucky National Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency Emergency Medical Services strike teams and additional nursing students to aid the overwhelmed staff at St. Claire and other facilities across the state.
“The assistance of the assignment of the Kentucky National Guard, the request from the Governor for the (National Disaster Medical System) team and the additional assistance from the nurses from the Galen College of Nursing students have been a godsend,” said Donald Lloyd II, president and chief executive officer of St. Claire, in a release.
Gov. Beshear called a special session of the General Assembly together on Tuesday to extend Kentucky’s state of emergency through Jan. 15, 2022, to allow him and health officials to enact strategies to respond to this surge in cases. (Beshear is now required to call a special session to discuss and pass a new state of emergency, and then pass orders that result from the state of emergency after an Aug. 21 decision by the Kentucky Supreme Court declared the General Assembly could limit what a governor can and cannot do.)
“For 18 months, the seriousness of this pandemic has been stressed. The coronavirus is serious. It kills and can make people extremely sick and for a long time,” said Dr. Steven Stack, commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health. “We’re seeing that the Delta variant, which represents most of the current cases of COVID-19, takes dangerousness to a new level. It is a vicious, contagious microbe and is finding its way to younger Kentuckians. We need to continue to do everything we can to prevent its spread.”
“The strongest defenses we have (against COVID) are to get vaccinated if you’re 12 or older and to wear a face mask when you’re indoors,” said Dr. Stack.
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This article appears in Sep 1-14, 2021.
