CDC/FEMA projections warn of increased coronavirus cases and deaths; Kentucky counties with elevated case numbers are shown

As news develops about the coronavirus and its covid-19 disease, this item may be updated. Official state guidance is at kycovid19.ky.gov.

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"As President Trump presses for states to reopen their economies, his administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths over the next several weeks. The daily death toll will reach about 3,000 on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double the current number of about 1,750," the Times reports.

The projections by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, based on government modeling, "forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now," the Times reports. "The projections confirm the primary fear of public-health experts: that a reopening of the economy will put the nation back where it was in mid-March, when cases were rising so rapidly in some parts of the country that patients were dying on gurneys in hospital hallways as the health care system was overloaded."

The report from FEMA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows counties with "elevated incidence growth" of cases, as well as "elevated incidence of plateau" and other categories. Compared to its major adjoining states, Kentucky compares favorably, but there are many "elevated" counties in its western half: Ballard, McCracken, Henderson, Daviess, McLean, Simpson, Warren, Allen, Meade and Jefferson. Boone, Kenton, Campbell, Jessamine and Perry are also elevated.

Counties at elevated plateaus (again, from west to east) include Marshall, Calloway, Webster, Muhlenberg, Barren, Grayson, Hardin, Bullitt, Nelson, Oldham, Shelby, Fayette and Floyd. Some counties are showing a "sustained decline": Graves, Christian, Hopkins, Ohio, Butler, Russell, Pulaski and Jackson.

The Times notes that Scott Gottlieb, who was President Trump’s commissioner of food and drugs, said Sunday on CBS, “We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we’re just not seeing that.”

In other covid-19 news Monday:

• Louisville's chamber of commerce has called on the governors of Kentucky and Indiana to align their "disjointed reopening plans." Greater Louisville Inc. President and CEO Sarah Davasher-Wisdom wrote, "Our families, workers and businesses need consistency for this regional economy and do not view the Ohio River as the line we are being asked to stay behind." She asked that Gov. Andy Beshear and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb "identify coordinated solutions" to ensure the region is "best positioned for reopening, Ben Tobin reports for the Louisville Courier Journal. 
• Beshear has removed a member of the state Board of Emergency Medical Services, saying Robbie Smither of Shelbyville "publicly promoted violent action against law enforcement" on social media, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. WHAS-TV reported last week that Smither criticized the arrest of a Louisville woman for repeatedly violating a quarantine order. “This is tyranny,” Smither posted on Facebook. “I wish this lady would have used deadly force against these tyrants and then a jury nullify the case.” 
• The University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service has stepped up efforts across the state to make isolation gowns, N95 mask covers and surgical caps, Carol Lea Spence reports for UKNow.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is allowing emergency use of an experimental drug that appears to help some coronavirus patients, reports Modern Healthcare. Preliminary results from a government-sponsored study of 1,063 patients showed that remdesvir shortened recovery time by 31 percent, or about four days on average, for seriously ill covid-19 patients.
• The FDA says coronavirus antibody tests, which identify people who may have had the virus, including those with no symptoms, must meet standards for quality and accuracy. This comes after the agency allowed more than 100 such test on the market without review, The Washington Post reports. Officials told the Post that “unscrupulous actors” have been “marketing fraudulent test kits and using the pandemic as an opportunity to take advantage of Americans’ anxiety.”
• An opinion piece in The New York Times goes into detail about what natural herd immunity for the coronavirus may look like, noting that there would be nothing "quick or painless" in this process without a vaccine, because it would result in millions of deaths. 
• Doctors have found that some covid-19 patients have dangerously low blood-oxygen levels -- levels that usually lead to unconsciousness or even death -- but are able to breathe normally. Doctors are trying to figure out if home monitoring using pulse oximeters, a device that measures oxygen levels through your finger, will help. 
• A report by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says "The severe and unprecedented size of the health, human, and economic crisis caused by covid-19 should determine the size of the legislative response — not arbitrary dollar comparisons to stimulus in prior recessions, the level of debt, or the debt ratio." 
• As meatpackers anticipate supply disruptions due to coronavirus infections among their employees, Costco has joined some other grocers and is allowing only three meat purchases per Costco member, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.
• Former President George W. Bush issued a video calling for national unity in the pandemic, saying "In the final analysis, we are not partisan combatants. We are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God. We rise or fall together, and we are determined to rise." President Trump tweeted, "I appreciate the message from former President Bush, but where was he during impeachment, calling for putting partisanship aside?"