UK finalizing deal to manage Ashland hospital in 'joint venture'

King's Daughters Medical Center (2011 photo) The University of Kentucky and King's Daughters Heath System, which has a major hospital in Ashland, have formed what they call a "joint venture." Mark Newman, UK's executive vice president for health affairs, told his colleagues, "This is our most significant hospital...

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Sharp drop in hospital cases led the way Sunday, as every measure of the pandemic in Kentucky declined, but variants loom

Ky. Health News graph; case average from initial, unadjusted daily reports; click it to enlarge By Al Cross Kentucky Health News Every common measure of the pandemic in Kentucky declined Sunday, perhaps most notably the number of Covid-19 patients in Kentucky hospitals. The hospitals reported 1,327 patients with the...

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Gray works to create high-volume regional vaccination centers in anticipation of the day when there is an abundance of supply

Transportation Secretary Jim Gray By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News   State Transportation Secretary Jim Gray manages a $2.2 billion budget, and has been president of an international construction firm, mayor of Lexington and Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, but he says none of those responsibilities...

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Pandemic numbers mostly down Saturday, but positive-test rate rises for first time in 13 days; 2-week daily death average also up

Ky. Health News chart; state data; virus case numbers are from unadjusted initial daily reports By Al CrossKentucky Health News Most metrics of the pandemic continued to decline in Kentucky Saturday, the major exceptions being the two-week average of daily deaths and the one-week average of residents testing positive...

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As Ky. positive-test rate keeps falling and death trend keeps rising, feds say new virus variants make vaccinations more urgent

Johnson & Johnson has completed studies of its one-shot vaccine and is expected to ask the FDA for emergency-use authority late next week. (Photo by Dado Ruvic, Reuters)  By Al Cross Kentucky Health NewsThe novel coronavirus continued to become less prevalent in Kentucky on Friday, but the Covid-19 disease...

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Beware of misinformation about vaccines from folks with agendas

Photo by Joe Raedle, Getty Images "Anti-vaccine groups are exploiting the suffering and death of people who happen to fall ill after receiving a covid shot, threatening to undermine the largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history," reports Liz Szabo of Kaiser Health News. Some activists are "fabricating stories of...

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69 more Kentuckians, a record, dead from Covid-19, but other metrics keep trending down; four regional vaccine sites to open

Ky. Health News graph; dates are those on which deaths were added to the list after review of cases. Kentucky Health News chart, from state data By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Thursday was a day for good news and bad news in Kentucky about the pandemic. Gov. Andy Beshear announced the state's highest...

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Kentucky was a pandemic hot spot in mid-January, but was cooling; deaths spiked, but new Covid-19 hospital admissions fell

White House Coronavirus Task Force table; for a larger version, click on it. Kentucky was a pandemic hot spot in the week covered by the first White House Coronavirus Task Force report from the new Biden administration, issued Thursday for a reporting week that was nearly a week old. White House Coronavirus...

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Biden reopens marketplace for subsidized health insurance under Affordable Care Act, from Feb. 15 to May 15, citing pandemic

President Biden is reopening enrollment for federally subsidized health insurance policies under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for three months, giving Kentuckians another chance to get help from a program that has had decreasing participation in the state in recent years. Open enrollment for "Obamacare" policies is usually from Nov. 1 to mid-December. Biden's executive order will open it from Feb. 15 through May 15, a White House...

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Coronavirus cases and positivity rates are trending down, but Beshear cautions that the risk to you and your family remains high

Kentucky Department for Public Health graphic; URL leads to list of testing sites By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News While numbers of new coronavirus cases and percentage of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus continue to trend down, Gov. Andy Beshear cautioned Wednesday that the numbers are still too...

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CDC study suggests that with proper mitigation, kids can go back to school, but schools have often been accused of noncompliance

Illustration by Hannah Brown, Kaiser Health News, Kaiser Family Foundation By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News A new study shows that rural schools holding in-person classes with heavy masking, social distancing and limited group sizes had few transmissions of the novel coronavirus. But a separate analysis shows...

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Beshear says Biden sending Ky. 17% more vaccine and feds will give 3 weeks notice of supply; Ky. finds cases of U.K. variant

By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News The federal government will be increasing Kentucky's supply of Covid-19 vaccines by 17 percent, Gov. Andy Beshear announced Tuesday. He had asked the new Biden administration to allocate more doses to the state. “That is a great start, especially for an administration just six days...

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