Plain talk’s understood: ‘Snot and spit … spread infection,’ health chief says as he advises us to ‘hunker down’ during the holidays
White House task force graph shows national numbers; Kentucky’s trends have been similar.
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Dr. Deborah Birx (Image from WDRB) |
White House visitor: In an exclusive interview with WDRB,’s Lawrence Smith, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said she was well aware of the controversy surrounding Beshear’s aggressive handling of the virus, but had nothing but praise for his actions.
“Now that we are 10 months in, we can really see in the states where the governors were very proactive, did things before others might have thought it was important, have much lower hospitalizations and much lower fatalities by population, compared to other states,” Birx said. “I think as we look back on this, we’re really going to applaud those governors who were proactive.”
Beshear said, “I think that what that foremost expert told them, without me in the room, is that the steps we’ve taken work and where people are not taking action, or don’t have the authority to take action, you see really dire consequences.”
UK nurse Janie Lawson vaccinated nergency-medicine pharmacist Abby Bailey. (UK photo by Mark Cornelison) |
“After 10 months of being on the front lines of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are excited for the good news that a vaccine is now available and that we can offer it to some of our health care workers at UK HealthCare,” Dr. Mark Newman, UK’s executive vice president for health affairs, said in a news release. “We will be providing the first vaccinations to our front-line workers, employees who have direct patient care primarily for Covid-19 patients or under investigation for Covid-19. While we know that we have a long way to go in ending this pandemic, we are grateful to be part of this momentous first step.”
Chief Robert Lee Orkies |
Beshear honored the life of Zoneton Fire Chief Robert Lee Orkies of Shepherdsville, who died at 55 after a battle with cancer and Covid-19 on Dec. 11. Beshear said Orkies had been a firefighter since 1984.
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The share of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus in the past seven days is 8.53 percent, down slightly from Monday.
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There are 1,788 Covid-19 patients in Kentucky hospitals, 438 of them in intensive care and 246 of those on ventilators.
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Counties with more than 10 new cases were: Jefferson, 418; Fayette, 162; Warren, 123; Daviess, 122; Madison, 120; Pulaski, 84; McCreary, 73; Hardin, 68; Laurel, 66; Boone, 63; Whitley, 60; Kenton, 59; Oldham, 51; Clinton, 51; Hopkins, 46; Adair, 46; Knox, 42; Russell, 41; Taylor, 40; Nelson, 35; Bullitt, 34; Green, 34; Henderson, 33; Jessamine, 31; Boyd, 30; Campbell, 29; Greenup, 28; Lincoln, 28; Mercer, 27; Casey, 26; Boyle, 25; Clay, 24; Christian, 23; Floyd, 23; Cumberland, Muhlenberg, Logan and Marion, 22; Graves and Meade, 21; Montgomery, 20; Clark and Breathitt, 19; McCracken and Franklin, 18; Anderson, Barren, Scott, Grayson, Todd and Wayne, 17; Perry, Ohio and Harlan, 16; Allen and Union, 15; Bell, Johnson and Simpson, 14; Letcher, Garrard and Washington, 13; Edmonson, 12; and Hart, Monroe, Metcalfe, Morgan, Pendleton and Wolfe, 11.
- The 15 deaths confirmed Tuesday were of a 68-year-old man from Boyd County; a Caldwell County woman, 62; two Daviess County men, 77 and 80; Graves County woman, 88; a Hardin County man, 77; five Jefferson County men, 61, 64, 78, 83 and 92; a McCracken County woman, 90; and three Ohio County women, 91, 87 and 91.
- There are 2,723 active cases of the coronavirus among long-term-care residents and 1,406 active cases among staff. Beshear said 20 additional deaths in these facilities are attributable to Covid-19, one of them a staff member. There have now been 1,563 residents and eight staff members die from Covid-19, or 70% of the state’s total Covid-19 deaths.
- As the daily Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths across the U.S. reached all-time highs, with someone dying from the disease every 35 seconds, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told CNN it will only get worse: “The reality is, December and January and February are going to be rough times.”
- Compared with children who tested negative for the coronavirus, children who tested positive were more likely to have attended gatherings, like weddings, parties, playdates and funerals, and not more likely to have attended child care or in-person school, according to the CDC’s latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
- Click here for the Kentucky Department of Education “Covid-19 Considerations for Reopening Schools” that provides details for how the department is preparing for Covid-19 vaccinations.
- The Food and Drug Administration approved the first over-the-counter coronavirus test, developed by Ellume. It “can be used to diagnose people 2 years of age and older, connects to an app that delivers results to patients’ phones, and reports results to local public health officials,” Kelly Lienhard reports for Inside Health Policy. “Ellume expects more than 3 million tests to be manufactured by the end of January 2021.”
- The FDA released a detailed analysis on Tuesday that supports the authorization of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, NPR reports. On Thursday, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, an advisory group, will discuss the vaccine in a public meeting. Beshear said “if everything goes the way we think it” will go, Kentucky will have a shipment of the Moderna vaccine on Monday.
- The state’s Eviction Relief Fund will stay open until all funds are exhausted. Beshear said the fund still has about $1.4 million remaining it to help Kentuckians pay any past rent due from March through December. Click here to apply. He said since opening the applications for this fund in September, the state has approved $12.3 million in eviction relief funds to 3,254 Kentucky households.
- Beshear said the Food and Beverage Relief Fund, which makes grants that don’t have to be repaid, has had nearly 4,300 applications, requesting $37 million, and has distributed $30.2 million of the $40 million available. Applications will close Dec. 18. Click here to apply.
- Deborah Yetter of the Courier Journal reports on the first of “12 notable individuals committed to the advancement of Kentucky,” as identified by the Louisville newspaper, and the first one in the series is Stack, whom she calls “the front man in the state’s fight against Covid-19.” She reports that Stack “has no regrets about taking on the job that has come with grueling hours and political firestorms over restrictions the state imposes, often on his advice, to try to limit the spread of Covid-19.” He said, “Yes, I would do it again. How many times do each of us have an opportunity in our lives to have such a meaningful impact?”
- Dr. Jon Klein, vice dean for research and professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, and Dr. Melissa Walton-Shirley, who graduated from the school and completed her internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship in Louisville, answered questions about the Covid-19 vaccine in an opinion article for the Courier Journal.
- Stephan Johnson of WDRB interviewed Dr. Joseph Flynn, chief administrative officer for Norton Medical Group and physician-in-chief of Norton Cancer Institute at Norton Healthcare, to get some answers about what to expect moving forward now that the Covid-19 vaccine is here.