Kentucky Records Biggest Spike In COVID-19 Cases In Two Weeks

COVID-19 Update For Saturday, May 30

Kentucky recorded its biggest increase in new COVID-19 cases in over two weeks.

On Friday, May 29, Gov. Andy Beshear announced 283 new cases, raising Kentucky’s total to 9,464. In addition, Gov. Beshear reported nine new deaths, raising the state’s total to 418. Of the nine deaths reported Friday, six were in Butler County, which has the state’s highest infection rate, according to Kentucky Health News.

It was a significant increase, but the governor said it was too soon to say if it could be the start of a trend as the state continues to reopen its economy.

“We’ll have to wait the next couple days to see whether it is just labs getting caught up from the weekend or whether it is in and of itself significant and something we’ll see moving forward,” Beshear said at Friday’s briefing. He said on average, there have been 158 cases reported per day over the last four days.

While governments across the nation and the world have sought to reopen, the coronavirus remains a clear and persistent danger. South Korea, which has received praise for its efforts in containing the pandemic, has had to close public facilities—including schools—again after recording its biggest increase in more than 50 days, according to euronews.com.

Here in the U.S., some reopening states have seen increases in the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 while others have recorded decreases or have held steady at around the same number, according to thehill.com.

Wisconsin, which reopened suddenly two weeks ago after the state’s supreme court struck down the governor’s pandemic restrictions, has seen some of its highest single-day new case counts of coronavirus in the past few days, with deaths and hospitalizations also rising, according to Forbes.

Kentucky is one of only three states in the nation that meets the federal government’s requirements for reopening the economy, according to Kentucky Health News. Gov. Beshear attributes the state’s success to Kentuckians’ willingness to abide by the restrictions his office has enacted. But officials are also warning the public that they need to follow precautions including frequently washing their hands, wearing masks and practicing social distancing.

Also on Friday, the Mercer County Health Department reported the county’s 14th confirmed diagnosis, a male in his 60s. According to a Facebook post, this is the first Mercer County resident to test positive who had gotten tested despite having no symptoms, no known positive contacts and added precaution, including daily temperature checks with no fever. “Our case is a local example of why we must test as many people as possible and wear masks in public as a preventive measure,” the health department wrote.

Locally, testing is available at Northgate Medical Group (106 Commercial Drive, 734-3482), at Ephraim McDowell Haggin Primary Care (470 Linden Avenue, Suite 5, 733-5864) and at Harrodsburg Urgent Care (844 South College Street, 605-6184).

Across the world, there are currently over 6-million confirmed cases, resulting in 368,696 deaths, according to worldometers.info. Over 2.6 million people have recovered.

Nearly a third of those cases—1.8 million–are here in the U.S., which remains the epicenter of the pandemic. So far, 520,996 people have recovered while 104,995 people have died.

At least 3,231 Kentuckians have recovered from the virus. For additional information, including up-to-date lists of positive cases and deaths, as well as breakdowns of coronavirus infections by county, race and ethnicity, click here.