As Lexington cases set a new record, mayor urges mask wearing; Cameron joins Northern Ky. suit attacking Beshear's restrictions

Kentucky Health News chart; hospital data are not reported on weekends.

As Kentucky headed into a holiday weekend, it recorded slightly higher numbers of new coronavirus cases and covid-19 hospitalizations, but the overall stability was undermined by a growing hotspot in the state's second largest city.

In a press release Thursday, Gov. Andy Beshear reported 239 new cases, up from 220 the day before, but the state's seven-day rolling average declined to 214 from 220. The state's daily report said 430 people in Kentucky were hospitalized for covid-19, up from 427 the day before. Intensive-care cases remained steady at 73; they have ranged from 61 to 79 in the last three weeks.

Beshear reported nine more deaths, raising the state's toll to 581. The fatalities were a 67-year-old man from Carroll County; an 81-year-old man from Gallatin County; an 84-year-old woman from Grayson County; an 81-year-old woman from Logan County; an 86-year-old woman and a 90-year-old man from Shelby County; a 90-year-old woman from Warren County; and two men from Allen County, 62 and 65.

Counties reporting more than five new cases were Jefferson, 49; Fayette, 29; Warren, 11; Christian, nine; Hardin, Hopkins and Kenton, seven each; and Scott, six.

The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, which follows a different reporting schedule, "reported 46 new covid-19 cases Thursday, a new single-day high for cases excluding the Federal Medical Center outbreak in early May," the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.

"The five days with highest case counts not driven by the FMC have come since June 14," the newspaper reports. "The new single-day high comes on the heels of Lexington’s worst covid-19 month. Cases, deaths and hospitalizations increased more in June than they had in any previous month. Mayor Linda Gorton urged residents to wear masks.

The Herald-Leader also reports "a local rise in cases among those who have traveled to covid-19 'hot spots,' including Florida and South Carolina. The state’s top health official last week urged people who traveled to Myrtle Beach to quarantine for 14 days after a surge in cases there."

In other covid-19 news Thursday:

• Boone Circuit Judge Rick Brueggemann allowed the Florence Speedway dirt track in Walton to have spectators, at half capacity. He ruled in a suit challenging Beshear’s restrictions on businesses. "The judge said he also will examine the state’s limits placed on class sizes for another plaintiff, day-care center Little Links to Learning in Fort Mitchell," the Herald-Leader reports.
• Attorney General Daniel Cameron, originally named as a defendant in the case, got the judge to make him a plaintiff and attacked Beshear's broad orders, saying the governor should "tailor his orders to specific hot spots or concerns." He said after the hearing, “With nearly half of Kentucky’s workforce unemployed and the day-to-day lives of Kentuckians micromanaged by the governor’s executive orders, it is incumbent upon us to challenge over-broad and unconstitutional orders and seek relief for our fellow citizens.” Beshear spokeswoman Crystal Staley said, “The attorney general’s position is reckless and threatens the lives of thousands of Kentuckians at a time when the coronavirus is surging in states to our south.”
• After Sen. Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders spoke up, during a major surge in virus cases, President Trump is supporting the use of face masks. “I’m all for masks. I think masks are good,” the president said Wednesday afternoon on Fox Business.
• Eastern Kentucky University will resume classes Aug. 17, with no fall break and in-person classes ending at Thanksgiving, the Herald-Leader reports. Finals will be given online in the week after the holiday, according to the university's reopening plan.. The first day of classes at the University of Kentucky is also Aug. 17. 
• U.S. pediatricians have issued a strong statement in favor of schools reopening in the fall if they can do it safely, NPR reports. The American Academy of Pediatrics guidance stresses that policy makers need to recognize that covid-19 policies "are intended to mitigate, not eliminate, risk" and goes over the general principles that decision makers need to consider as they make plans for the upcoming school year. 
• Kevin Wheatley of WDRB reports on how prospect of school in the fall makes immuno-compromised teachers anxious. “Most of the public is not aware that there really are students, faculty and staff who are sick,” Louisville teacher Terrilyn Fleming told Wheatley.  “I understand people are not used to wearing masks, but it really is life and death for people like me have immunodeficiencies.”
• Scientific American magazine reports that "superspreading" events have driven covid-19, reporting that "research on actual cases, as well as models of the pandemic, indicate that between 10 and 20 percent of infected people are responsible for 80 percent of the coronavirus’s spread."  Scientists have identified factors that catalyze such superspreader events, include large crowd sizes, close contact between people and confined spaces with poor ventilation, Scientific American reports.
• Using data from The New York Times, Becker's Hospital Review offers an easy-to-read list of states where new covid-19 cases are rising, falling and staying the same as of July 2. 
• WFPL offers a covid-19 tracker that includes county-level data.