New cases of Covid-19 in Kentucky dropped 4% last week, but the state still has the highest infection rate in the nation

New York Times map, adapted by Kentucky Health News (Click to enlarge; interactive version is here.)

By Melissa Patrick

Kentucky Health News

New coronavirus cases in Kentucky dropped a bit last week, even as the share of Kentuckians who were tested for the virus increased and the state's rate of new cases remained first in the nation. 

The state Department for Public Health's report for the latest Monday-to-Sunday period said there were 3,240 new cases last week, or 462 per day. That was 4% fewer than the previous week, when the state reported 484 per day. 

New cases in Kentuckians 18 and younger were lower than in the last month. The latest report showed 26%, or 848, of the cases in this age group. Last time, they were 39% of the total. 

The only school-age group that has increased its vaccination rate since Sept. 26, the last time Kentucky Health News reported rates, are 16- and 17-year-olds, who rose to 47% from 43%, state data show. Whole-number percentages for younger groups remained the same: 43% of those 12 to 15, 20% of those 5 to 11, and 2% of those 6 months to 4 years old were fully vaccinated.  

The share of Kentuckians testing positive for the coronavirus was 8.5%, up from 7.91% in the prior week's report and 7.7% the week before that. This figure does not include at-home tests. The rate has gone up the last two weeks as fewer tests have been reported (30,963 last week, 37,326 two weeks ago).

Kentucky hospitals reported 253 patients with Covid-19 Monday, down 34 from the week before; 28 of them in intensive care, down 18; and 15 of them on mechanical ventilation, up two. 

The state's new-case rate was 10.02 cases per 100,000 residents, down slightly from 10.25 a week earlier. The top 10 counties on the state report were Green, 37.9; Letcher, 32.5; Russell, 31.1; Leslie, 20.2; Powell, 19.7; Henry, 19.5; Nelson, 19.5; Perry, 19.4; Gallatin, 19.3; and Simpson, 16.9 per 100,000.

The New York Times again ranks Kentucky's infection rate first in the nation, even though it fell 6% in the last 14 days. The Times places McCreary, Perry, Floyd, Letcher and Knott counties among the nation's top 10 new-case rates in the nation in the last seven days. (The Times's figures differ from state figures because of differences in data gathering and processing.)

The state attributed 80 more deaths to Covid-19 last week, increasing the pandemic's death toll to 17,191.