Spring lockdown followed by summer events makes people let their guard down and spread the virus, health departments say
Lexington Herald-Leader map, relabeled by Kentucky Health News
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Coronavirus cases are surging in Kentucky because “people are letting their guard down” at summer events like barbecues, parades and vacations, Alex Acquisto of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports after interviewing local health-department directors and employees.
“Things are open, [people] have been locked down for three months and they want to live their lives thinking they can’t get it,” said Alicia Thompson, an infection-control nurse in Graves County, where cases have risen 18 percent in the last two weeks, the seventh-highest increase per-capita increase in the state.
“It’s the smaller communities across the state where growth rates are exploding,” Acquisto writes. “While outbreaks in congregate settings such as nursing homes continue to be reliable hotspots, it’s the patchwork of small-to-medium sized interactions between people, including outdoor cookouts, that are largely to blame for Kentucky’s surge, according to eight health department directors across more than 30 counties.”
People in their 20s and 30s are driving the increase in the eight Southern Kentucky counties served by the Barren River District Health Department, Director Matt Hunt said, “The average age of those who’ve tested positive is 38,” Acquisto writes. “This may not be a surprise, many said, but it should serve as a reminder: even small groups of people can propagate aggressive spread of the virus.”