Seven-day average of new coronavirus cases jumps 15.3% in one day; positive-test rate is above 3% for first time in nearly 3 months
By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News
Ky. Health News graph from state data; click it to enlarge |
Another way of measuring new cases, the infection rate, also rose to the highest since June 15. Over the last seven days, the state has reported 4.75 cases per 100,000 residents.
Ky. Health News graph from state data; click to enlarge |
The positive-test rate, also calculated over the last seven days, was 3.1%. It has increased for the last two weeks, from a low of 1.79% on June 25.
But even places with high vaccination rates are vulnerable to outbreaks. Woodford County, which leads Kentucky with 65.3% of its population vaccinated, has an outbreak stemming from the King’s Way Church, near the Fayette County line; Fayette and Anderson counties are also involved. About 40 cases are in Woodford; about 80% are in unvaccinated people. One has been hospitalized.
County Judge-Executive James Kay told the station, “Today is the call to action. Today is why this is not over. If this can happen in the summer like this, in a county like ours where people take it seriously and get vaccinated, the fall is going to be tough.”
Pastor Jeff Johnson told WKYT, “What’s so disheartening for all of us involved is that we’ve done everything that everyone encouraged us to do and some,” following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and reopening slowly. The church has gone virtual until at least July 18.
“I’ve got to lead them all, respect their own personal choices, but the responsibility I have is to lead by example, so I got it early on and I’ve been an advocate for everybody getting vaccinated,” Johnson said. “We’ll continue to beat that drum and we’ll encourage people just to be vigilant.”
Prather said test samples are being genomically sequenced to see what variant caused the cases, and she expects many of the results to come back positive for the variant,” WKYT reports.