State’s positivity rate back above 4%, last week’s total second highest

On Tuesday, Gov. Andy Beshear announced that the state’s positivity rate had risen above 4% for the first time in over a week.

As of Tuesday’s press briefing, Kentucky’s positivity rate for COVID-19 cases was at 4.52%.

On Monday, Beshear had announced that the state’s positivity rate had been below 4% for a week, yet the state saw the second-highest number of weekly cases.

“Last week, we had our second-highest number of cases by week,” the Governor said. “We really want to see this overall number of cases come down. Our positivity rate is going down, which is great news. But those overall numbers are too high. We’ve got to do what it takes to have fewer new weekly cases.”

For the week ending Saturday, Sept. 19, there were a total of 4,806 new cases. Beshear said that

the number of weekly cases has been about 4,000 per week since July 20. The highest total of new cases per week was the week ending Sept. 5 when there were 4,971 cases.

Beshear said the drop in positivity rate is an indication that Kentucky is finding more asymptomatic cases by ramping up testing, but that the real challenge is going to be keeping the rate low. As of Tuesday, the state had performed more than 1.1 million tests since March.

The state’s mortality rate has fallen below 2%. As of Tuesday afternoon, there have been 1,119 COVID-19 related deaths.

There has been a total of 62,731 positive cases of the virus in the Commonwealth as of Tuesday.

Beshear also stressed the importance of getting a flu shot noting that health experts warn that a bad seasonal flu outbreak might spark a “twindemic” that could overwhelm healthcare systems.

He also said that by the end of the week he would announce guidance for Halloween to enable kids to celebrate the holiday. But, he urged adults not to host large Halloween gatherings.

As of Tuesday morning, Ohio County has had a total of 459 cases of COVID-19 with 47 of those still listed as active. There have not been any COVID-19 related deaths reported since Aug. 11, but Judge-Executive David Johnston said the county’s coronavirus related death rate was still over 2% which is “way over the state and national average.”

Johnston is encouraging everyone to do what they can to reduce the spread of the virus by continuing to practice the 3 W’s of wearing a mask, washing your hands and watching your distance.