Editor’s note: Due to an upload of a significant backlog of case data from Lexington-Fayette County, the majority of today’s cases are from weeks past. The actual number of new cases today without the backlog is 926.
As of 4 p.m. Oct. 6, Gov. Beshear said there were at least 76,587 coronavirus cases in Kentucky, 2,398 of which were newly reported Wednesday. Three hundred and fifty-eight of the newly reported cases were from children ages 18 and younger, of which 38 were children ages 5 and under.
Unfortunately, Gov. Beshear reported five new deaths Wednesday, raising the total to 1,218 Kentuckians lost to the virus.
The deaths reported Wednesday include a 68-year-old man from Fayette County; an 80-year-old woman from Greenup County; a 65-year-old man from Harlan County; a 79-year-old man from Henderson County; and a 75-year-old woman from Whitley County.
“Sadly, today we have lost five additional Kentuckians, and we expect the next several weeks that these numbers will go up as the number of cases go up,” the Governor said. “Each one is an important individual whose family loves and misses them.”
As of Wednesday, there have been at least 1,568,542 coronavirus tests performed in Kentucky. The positivity rate was 4.21%, and at least 12,800 Kentuckians have recovered from the virus. Dr. Steven Stack, commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health, said the additional uploaded case data from Lexington-Fayette County did not affect today’s positivity rate.
Dr. Stack offered more detailed information Wednesday on the state of the commonwealth’s fight against the coronavirus. He also provided insight into the reporting of cases in Fayette County.
Dr. Stack said the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, with assistance from the Kentucky Department for Public Health, has developed a way to enter more than 1,900 of Lexington’s COVID-19 cases into a state system. This will allow the state’s reported COVID-19 case numbers for Lexington to more closely align with Lexington’s cumulative case count.
“We are appreciative of the community’s understanding as we moved through this delay,” Dr. Stack said. “As previously stated, the delay only existed with data entry; there were no delays in contacting positive cases and close contacts in Lexington.”
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. To see all recent daily reports, click here.
Information about COVID-19 and schools is also being made available. To view the reports, click here for K-12 and here for colleges and universities.