Well under 3% of coronavirus tests in Kentucky are positive; daily average of new virus cases also keeps falling

Kentucky Health News graph, from state's initial, unadjusted daily reports

Ky. Health News graph, from state reports

By Al Cross

Kentucky Health News

Major measures of the pandemic in Kentucky continued to decline Saturday.

The percentage of Kentuckians testing positive for the coronavirus in the last seven days fell to 2.83%, one of the lowest levels since testing became widely available almost a year ago. The average has fallen for the last 10 days, from 3.57%.

The state reported 488 new cases of the virus, lowering its seven-day rolling average to 503, the lowest since last July. The average has fallen for 11 consecutive days. So has the statewide rate of daily new cases over the last seven days; it is 8.68 per 100,000 residents, the lowest since the state started reporting the figure in mid-December.

Counties with rates more than double the statewide rate are almost all rural: Webster, 40.8; Rockcastle, 31.7; Owen, 27.5; Adair, 25.3; Estill, 23.3; Powell, 20.8; Lewis, 20.4; Union, 19.9; Casey, 19.4; Henderson, 19; Morgan, 18.2; Montgomery, 17.8; and Taylor, 17.7.

Counties with more than 10 new cases Saturday were Jefferson, 113; Fayette, 28; McCracken, 16; Daviess, 15; Henderson, 14; Boone, 13; and Johnson, Kenton, Pulaski and Warren, 12.

Kentucky hospitals reported 403 Covid-19 patients, one more than Friday, with 115 of them (up two) in intensive care and 51 of those (up five) on a ventilator.

Two of the 10 hospital-readiness regions reported more than 80% of their intensive-care beds in use: Lake Cumberland, at 93.33%, and Barren River, at 81.48%. Only 13% and 6% of the respective regions' beds were occupied by Covid-19 patients.

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Late-winter poll found Kentuckians were sharply divided over mandated vaccinations for in-person work or schooling

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Kentucky adults were divided in late winter when asked whether coronavirus vaccines should be required for employment or attending in-person school, according to a recent poll.

The poll, taken Feb. 11 to March 12, found 47% of Kentucky adults said it was a good idea to require school children to be vaccinated before in-person schooling, and 50% said it was a bad idea.

“It’s expected for parents to have lots of questions and be concerned about their child’s health,” said Ben Chandler, president and CEO of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, which sponsored the poll. “We encourage you to talk with your child’s pediatrician, your doctor, pharmacist or local health department to get the facts about what the vaccine means for your teen. And, talk to your teenager about what they want to do.”

By far, more Democrats (68%) than independents (43%) or Republicans (28%) said it was a good idea to require children to get a vaccine in order to attend in-person school.

This idea was most supported by Kentuckians 65 and older (56%) and least supported by those 30 to 45 (36%). There was also a divide between households without children (54%) and those that did (32%).

The poll was taken many weeks before the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved for use in children 12-15. This age group became eligible to get the vaccine Wednesday, with the first doses given Thursday in Kentucky. The vaccine has been authorized for people 16 and older since December.

A spokesperson for the state health cabinet, Susan Dunlap, told WFPL that “there are no current plans for the Covid-19 vaccine to become a mandatory immunization for Kentucky’s school children/youth.”

Allison Adams, the health foundation's vice-president for policy, said the poll shows how important it is for families to hear from trusted health-care providers as they decide about Covid-19 vaccination for children.

"They want to hear on a personal level how vaccine could impact their family members from someone who knows them, their situation and their community," Adams said at an online news conference. "That's why it's so important right now for local healthcare providers to be getting factual information out to their patients."

And even if the vaccine is not mandatory, Adams said there is value in offering the vaccine at schools because studies show the more readily available a vaccine is, the better the uptake will be.

A nationwide poll, taken in April, found three in 10 parents of children ages 12-15, or 30%, said they would get their child vaccinated for Covid-19 as soon as the vaccine was authorized. The Kaiser Family Foundation poll found 23% said they would definitely not get them vaccinated.

Polling on business

Gov. Andy Beshear announced Friday that he will allow all Kentucky businesses to open to 100% capacity June 11. He said waiting a month allows children 12-15 time to get fully vaccinated, which means they have received their second shot and two weeks have passed after receiving it.

The Kentucky poll also asked whether the respondents thought it was a good or bad idea for businesses to require employees to get a Covid-19 vaccine before being allowed to work in person. To this question, 52% said it was a good idea and 44% said it was a bad one.

Again, Democrats were most likely to support required Covid-19 vaccines to return to in-person work, at 74%, followed by independents at 56%, and Republicans at 35%.

This idea was also most supported by those 65 and older (65%) and least supported by those 30-45 (40%).

"Research shows that vaccines help keep people from spreading Covid-19 to others and they are a critical tool as we work against the clock before more variants come along. . . . That's why we all need to get vaccinated," said Adams.

The foundation's poll was conducted by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati. The poll's error margin is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. It surveyed a random sample of 807 Kentucky adults in landline and cellphone interviews.

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Pandemic's decline in Kentucky: New-case average is back to last July's level, and positive-test rate is back down to 3%

Ky. Health News graph, from state's initial, unadjusted daily reports; to enlarge, click on it.

By Al Cross

Kentucky Health News

As the pandemic in Kentucky marked a huge turning point in measures to thwart it, two daily measures of it were also landmarks.

The state reported 558 new cases of the coronavirus, lowering its seven-day rolling average to 511 cases per day. The average has not been that low since mid-July, when the state began its second surge of cases.

The statewide rate of new cases over the last seven days is 8.91 per 100,000 residents, the lowest since the state began including the metric on its daily pandemic report in December, amid the latest surge.

Counties with rates more than double the statewide rate were Webster, 36.4 per 100,000; Rockcastle, 29.1; Powell, 25.4; Montgomery, 24.4; Estill, 24.3; Adair, 23.8; Lewis, 23.7; Union, 21.9; Casey, 19.4; Mason, 19.2; Fulton, 19.1; Owen, 18.3; and Morgan, 18.2.

Counties with 10 or more new cases largely reflected population: Jefferson, 123; Fayette, 23; McCracken, 23; Warren, 18; Boone, 15; Kenton, 15; Hardin, 14; Pulaski, 13; Laurel, 11; Daviess, 10; and Grant, 10.

The percentage of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus in the last seven days dropped again, to exactly 3%. The rolling average has dropped for nine days in a row, from 3.57%. It was under 3% for most of late March and early April. It had been under 5%, a level of major concern, since March 1.

Kentucky Health News graph, from state Department for Public Health reports

Kentucky hospitals reported 402 Covid-19 patients, nine fewer than Thursday, with 113 of them in intensive care (down 4) and 46 of those on a ventilator (down 1).

Two of the 10 hospital-readiness regions had more than 80% of their intensive-care beds occupied: Lake Cumberland, 91%, and the easternmost region, from Lee to Pike counties, 82%.

The state reported six more deaths from Covid-19, all from regular health-department reports, bringing the state's official death toll from the pandemic to 6,643. In the last 14 days, there have been 9 deaths per day.

The Economist magazine estimates that the global death toll from the pandemic is about three times official figures, based on the number of deaths reported since it started and how much that total exceeds the number of deaths that would otherwise be expected. It estimates that the actual U.S. death toll from Covid-19 is 7.1% more than the 584,000 officially reported, or about 625,000; extrapolating that figure to Kentucky would make the state's toll 7,115. 

"Using known data on 121 variables, from recorded deaths to demography, we have built a pattern of correlations that lets us fill in gaps where numbers are lacking," Economist Editor Zanny Minton Beddoes wrote. "Our model suggests that Covid-19 has already claimed 7.1 million to 12.7 million lives. Our central estimate is that 10 million people have died who would otherwise be living. . . . The most important insight from our work is that covid-19 has been harder on the poor than anyone knew. Official figures suggest that the pandemic has struck in waves, and that the United States and Europe have been hit hard. . . . Ultimately, the way to stop this is vaccination."

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Capacity restrictions, and mask mandate in almost all places, will end June 11; it's a good reason to get vaccinated, Beshear says

Slide displayed by Gov. Any Beshear at news conference
gives latest state rules following new CDC guidelines.

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Turning one of the last pages in the pandemic, Gov. Andy Beshear announced Friday that in four weeks he will end capacity restrictions on businesses and other venues, and mask mandates in almost all places.

"On June 11 . . . life will be almost fully back to normal," Beshear said at a news conference. He said the delay will give children aged 12 to 15 time to get fully vaccinated, and give everyone else time to get fully vaccinated if they haven't done so already.

“Let’s be clear, a return to full capacity could raise the risk of exposure to those not vaccinated, but the solution is to get your vaccine,” he said.

Nearly 1.9 million Kentuckians have received at least one dose of vaccine, or 53% of the adult population. The Washington Post reports 35.1% of the state's population is fully vaccinated, which means they are two weeks past getting their second dose of the Pfizer BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, or two weeks past a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The announcement comes one day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear a mask both indoors and out, with a few exceptions. Beshear signed an executive order Thursday to align the state's mask rules with the new CDC guidance. 

"The CDC has now given the green light for vaccinated Americans to return to much of their normal lives," Beshear said. "This is great news. It should also be a compelling motivation to get vaccinated."

Masks are still required for everyone on public transportation, in schools, homeless shelters, correctional facilities, health-care settings and long-term-care facilities, and for people who are immunocompromised, have symptoms of Covid-19 or have tested positive for the coronavirus in the past 10 days.

With great emotion, Health Commissioner Steven Stack acknowledged how good it was to see people's smiling faces as he walked into the Capitol for the news conference. He called on Kentuckians to get vaccinated and to be kind to each other as people adjust to this change. 

"I hope you'll all still be kind and considerate and caring for each other," he said. Noting that he is an emergency physician by trade, "We've all got to get on with our lives. . . . Nothing in life is risk-free." 

Beshear offered similar messages. "Obviously there's going to be more contact, there's going to be less space," he said. "And if you are unvaccinated, there may be a greater likelihood that you could be exposed to Covid once we hit that June 11 date. . . . "If you are unwilling to get vaccinated, you really need to wear the mask to protect yourself from what is a pretty lethal virus."

The governor asked Kentuckians to offer each other "space and grace" under the new rules and said it will continue to be a good idea to keep a mask close at hand for situations they may encounter. He said he plans to mask up when he goes to the grocery, for example.

Beshear also expanded his earlier announcement that businesses can operate at 75% capacity starting May 28, to venues and events with more than 1,000 people. All such limits will end June 11.

Until then, Beshear said, businesses can require masks, but "They don't need to be checking for anybody's cards" that show they have been vaccinated.

Beshear had been the target of calls by Republicans end all mandates and restrictions. Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles, the most vocal, said on Twitter Friday that Beshear "is still holding Kentucky hostage for another month. . . . Kentucky will be one of the last states in our region to fully reopen." 

Beshear, a Democrat, was asked why he abandoned his initial threshold of 2.5 million vaccinations to remove restrictions. He noted that he has said repeatedly that he would relax rules as more Kentuckians got vaccinated, and the CDC's new mask guidance for fully vaccinated people is "a game changer." 

"So, this decision is based solely on following the science," he said. "I have tuned out political noise."

In closing, he said, "We're not fully done, but we are really, really close. We're gonna get through this. We've almost made it through this. We will finish it together." 

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Beshear says Ky. will follow new CDC mask guidance for fully vaccinated, an incentive for Kentuckians to get 'your shot of hope'

Centers for Disease Control chart; to enlarge, click on it.

By Melissa Patrick

Kentucky Health News

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new recommendations Thursday that drop most mask rules for people fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, and Gov. Andy Beshear says Kentucky will follow suit. 

"This is outstanding. It means that we are so close to normalcy and we're going to be changing Kentucky's mask mandate to be the same with those CDC guidelines," Beshear said in a Facebook post. "Now, folks, this means you ought to go get your shot of hope if you haven't." 

Beshear said "hundreds of thousands" vaccine appointments are available across the state, adding that when you are fully vaccinated, it is now safe to take that mask off. "Let's defeat this pandemic once and for all."

So far, 1,897,117 people have received at least one dose of a vaccine in Kentucky, or 43% of the state's total population.  The Washington Post reports 35.1% of the state's total population has been fully vaccinated. 

The new guidance allows fully vaccinated people to not wear a mask indoors, with some exceptions, and outdoors altogether. 

"Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a press conference. "We have all longed for this moment."

Walensky said the guidance is "based on the continuing downward trajectory of cases, the scientific data on the performance of our vaccines, and our understanding of how the virus spreads."

She cautioned that fully vaccinated people who are immune-compromised should talk to their doctor before following the new mask guidance. 

The guidance makes exceptions for crowded indoor spaces: buses, airplanes, health-care settings, congregate settings such as jails and homeless shelters, or where it conflicts with federal, state, local, tribal or territorial laws, rules and regulations, including local rules for workplaces. 

It calls on fully vaccinated people who experience Covid-19 symptoms to get tested and for them to follow the CDC and health department's travel requirements and recommendations. 

A fully vaccinated person is one who is two weeks past getting their second dose of either the Pfizer BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, or a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 

Republicans said it's time for the Democratic governor to follow the lead of neighboring states and end all mask mandates and capacity restrictions. House Speaker David Osborne pointed out that the state has not seen a spike in cases after hosting more than 50,000 people at the Kentucky Derby.

“Today’s announcement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is just further evidence that we are well past the time for this mandate to expire and our state to go even further in eliminating capacity restrictions," Osborne said in a prepared statement. "The legislature recognized this when we chose not to extend these mandates as part of Covid relief legislation passed during the 2021 session, but the governor chose to challenge the measure in court."

The legislation would end the mask mandates if the state Supreme Court rules in Beshear's favor in an earlier lawsuit over his emergency powers.

Osborne added, "The CDC speaks clearly to the need to rely on local, more targeted approaches and guidance, as well as the fact that individuals are prepared to make the decisions necessary to protect themselves. What further evidence does this administration need to open our state?" 

In an op-ed for the Lexington Herald-Leader, Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles again called for Beshear to set a firm date to reopen the state's economy. 

"While his latest announcement of loosening capacity restrictions is a step in the right direction, it is still not good enough for our small businesses, like restaurants, or where other leaders across the country are headed or have been," Quarles wrote. 

Beshear has said businesses that serve less than 1,000 people can operate at 75% capacity starting May 28. He has also said he will lift the curfew on restaurants and bars on that same day. 

Daily numbers: The state reported 674 new cases of coronavirus Thursday, with 151, or 22.4% of them in people 18 and under. That brings the seven-day rolling average to 522, about where it has been for four days. 

The percentage of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus in the last seven days is 3.04%. The average has declined for eight days, from 3.57%.

Kentucky hospitals reported 411 Covid-19 patients, 14 fewer than Wednesday; 117 in intensive care (down 12); and 47 of those on a ventilator (down 3). 

Two of the state's 10 hospital-readiness regions are using at least 80% of their intensive-care beds: the easternmost region, from Lee to Pike counties, at 85.3%, and Lake Cumberland, at 88.9%. 

The statewide rate of new cases over the last seven days is 9.31 cases per 100,000 residents. The rate has dropped for nine straight days, from 11.47. The New York Times ranks Kentucky's rate 23rd among the states, with a 10% drop in cases in the last 14 days. 

Counties with rates more than double the statewide rate are Powell, 37 per 100,000; Montgomery, 33; Webster, 30.9; Rockcastle, 28.2; Estill, 26.3; Bath, 26.3; Mason, 24.3; Adair, 23.1; Lewis, 22.6; Union, 21.9; Fleming, 21.6; Taylor, 21.1; Casey, 20.3; and  Fulton, 19.1.

The state's daily pandemic report shows seven more deaths from Covid-19, four from regular health- department reports and three from an ongoing audit of death certificates. The state's Covid-19 death toll is 6,637. 

The daily report lists the number and source of death reports, but not a list of fatalities by age, sex, county and date of death. That was included in the daily press releases that were discontinued this week.

In other pandemic news Thursday:

• Counties with 10 or more new cases were Jefferson, 138; Fayette, 38; Pulaski, 30; Wayne, 27; Kenton, 26; Adair, 20; Hardin and Warren, 17; Daviess, 15; McCracken, 14; Boone, 12; Campbell, 11; Clark, Grant and Johnson, 10. 
• In an effort to get more soldiers vaccinated, Fort Campbell's commander says unvaccinated troops will not be able to travel freely over the summer, Blake Farmer reports for WPLN, Nashville Public Radio. "Service members are able to turn down the vaccine at this point, since it only has emergency authorization from the FDA. Fort Campbell officers say roughly two-thirds of the installation has at least indicated they will get vaccinated. But they say that over the last two weeks, fewer and fewer have gotten their shot each day," Farmer reports.

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Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Tucker Carlson and other Republicans try to blame the pandemic on Dr. Anthony Fauci

Sen. Paul struck a nerve with Dr. Fauci. (Getty Images)

By Aaron Blake

The Washington Post

For much of the past year, Republicans have decried lead government coronavirus expert Anthony S. Fauci’s prescriptions for mitigating the pandemic — including masks, social distancing and keeping society shut down.

But increasingly in the past week, the effort has taken on a new flavor — with suggestions that Fauci might be personally to blame for the advent of the virus itself.

There remain major questions about just how the virus emerged, including the idea that it somehow escaped a lab in the city of Wuhan, China, where the virus originated. The theory, which was once highly speculative and which was downplayed by top medical experts such as Fauci, is suddenly being treated more seriously, though there is no conclusive evidence either way.

But while some Republicans have criticized the initial dismissal of that theory as evidence of a lack of curiosity from the media and health officials about the origins of the virus — or even some kind of pro-China or anti-Trump bias — the theories about Fauci’s complicity take things to another level.

With Fauci set to testify before the Senate on Tuesday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson teed things up the night before. In a commentary leading off his show, he played up the idea of a lab leak, pointing (rightly) to shifting beliefs in the medical community about its plausibility and treating it as an open question.

But then he pivoted to treating this as something amounting to fact.

While talking about National Institutes of Health funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Carlson referred to “the deadly experiments that were going on there” — which is valid, given that’s the kind of thing virologists do.

But he then referred to them, as if the lab-leak theory were proved, as “the experiments that clearly went so wrong.”

Again, there is no firm evidence that the spread of the coronavirus was the result of experiments that “clearly” went “so wrong” in the Wuhan lab. Carlson has a knack for suggesting things without saying them directly, but this veered in a much more conspiratorial and unproven direction than usual.

“This wouldn’t have happened if Tony Fauci didn’t allow it to happen — that is clear,” Carlson continued, referring to the funding. “It’s an amazing story. It is a shocking story. In a functional country, there would be a criminal investigation into Tony Fauci’s role in the covid pandemic that has killed millions and halted our country, changing it forever."

The easy answer is that it’s speculative and that criminal investigations generally involve some kind of genuine evidence of wrongdoing or violations of specific laws. It has been known for a long time that U.S. health agencies funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and it’s valid to ask whether that funding was a good idea. But there is no evidence that such funding ran afoul of U.S. law or that it contributed to the pandemic.

Carlson doubled down Tuesday night on the unproven lab leak theory and Fauci’s supposed responsibility for it, suggesting Fauci should not just be investigated but indicted. “The guy in charge of America’s response to covid turns out to be the guy who funded the creation of covid,” Carlson said, again going much further than the evidence allows. And Carlson’s guest, coronanvirus and vaccine skeptic Alex Berenson, actually pushed back on the idea of Fauci’s culpability.

GOP senators picked up that ball and ran with it Tuesday, pressing Fauci on the idea that funding the Wuhan lab put him at fault.

Sen. Rand Paul, who has clashed repeatedly with Fauci, pressed him on funding for the Wuhan lab. Paul suggested that the funding ran afoul of a prohibition on “gain-of-function” research — i.e., altering genomes to give viruses new properties, such as the ability to infect a new host species or to transmit more easily. The idea behind such research is that it might provide insight into how a virus spreads and improve efforts to counteract it, though it also carries obvious risks, which is why funding for such research is limited.

Paul claimed that the U.S. government was downplaying the link between gain-of-function research and the coronavirus because it was “self-interested” in continuing such research, or even covering up its role in the pandemic. He went on to press Fauci on the funding for the Wuhan lab, at which point Fauci said repeatedly that such funding was not intended to fund gain-of-function research (which fact-checkers have validated).

“With all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that — the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute,” Fauci said.

Paul then reverted to pointing to alleged gain-of-function research that is taking place in the United States, rather than the Wuhan lab, to which Fauci offered a rather lawyerly response about what gain-of-function research is. Paul then pressed him on sending broader funding to the Wuhan lab.

Fauci did at one point say about the lab-leak theory: “I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done, and I am fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China.”

Paul later got some backup from Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican.

Marshall, who like Paul is a doctor, repeatedly pressed Fauci on the idea that such viral research could have led to the novel coronavirus. He asked whether Fauci could definitively say that NIH funding didn’t, in some way, play a part in a theoretical eventual lab leak, citing research on mice.

“Could some of the funding [have] indirectly ended up to the contribution of Covid-19?” Marshall asked.

Fauci, testily, responded that the question was excessively broad, because many types of research could conceivably meet the definition as having one day contributed to the spread of the virus.

“I’m not sure exactly where that question is going,” Fauci said. “I mean, you could do research on something as benign as looking at something that has nothing to do with it, and it could, indirectly, some day, somehow be involved. So if you want to trap me into saying yes or no, I’m not going to play that game.”

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People under 18 made up about 19% of new virus cases in Kentucky Wednesday as Pfizer vaccine OKd for children 12 to 17

State Dept. for Public Health map, relabeled by Kentucky Health News; to enlarge, click on it.

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine has been approved for children as young as 12, and the move seems timely in Kentucky, with more than 19 percent of the state's new cases in people 18 and younger. 

Gov. Andy Beshear reported 680 new cases of the virus Wednesday, lowering the state's seven-day rolling average by four, to 520. Of those, 132, or 19.4%, were in people 18 and under.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved use of the Pfizer vaccine in children as young as 12, effective immediately. The vaccine has been authorized for people 16 and older since December.

The late-afternoon move prompted Beshear to issue a press release in which he said, “Starting tomorrow, more Kentuckians will have the opportunity to receive a Covid-19 vaccine and further protect themselves and those around them from this dangerous virus. We’ve seen new Covid-19 cases decline as more and more vaccines have been administered. Now, many Kentucky children and young teens have a chance to roll up their sleeves and become heroes for their communities by receiving their shot of hope.”

Citing a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, the release said about 231,000 Kentuckians are in the 12-15 age group. That's approximately 5% of the state’s population.

Beshear's office announced Tuesday that he would no longer issue regular pandemic press releases on days he does not hold news conferences, about two days a week. The number of new cases and the positive-test rate are posted on social media and the daily report on the Department for Public Health website.

Most measures of the pandemic in Kentucky declined slightly Wednesday. The share of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus in the last seven days is 3.08%, down for the seventh consecutive day. 

The state rate of new cases in the last seven days is 9.52 per 100,000 residents, down for the eighth straight day. The New York Times ranks Kentucky's rate 24th among the states with a 7% drop in the last 14 days. 

Counties with new-case rates double the statewide rate are Powell, 42.8; Montgomery, 36.5; Rockcastle, 35.1; Webster, 29.8; Estill, 27.3; Lewis, 24.8; Bath, 21.7; Fulton, 21.5; Owen, 21; Fleming, 20.6; Hickman,19.6; Casey, 19.4; and Taylor, 19.4.

So far, 1,898,937 people have received at least one dose of a vaccine in Kentucky, or 43% of the state's total population. Go to vaccines.gov/search/ to find a Covid-19 vaccination site.

Last week's State Profile Report for Kentucky showed that about 1.5 million Kentuckians were fully vaccinated, or nearly 34% of the total population. 

The state's vaccine dashboard highlights the top and bottom counties for percentage of population with at least one dose. The top five are Woodford, 56%; Franklin, 56%; Fayette, 53%; Scott, 47%, and Campbell, 46%. The bottom five are Spencer, 18%; Christian, 18%; Ballard, 19%; Lewis, 20%, and McCreary, 20%. 

The state reported 10 more Covid-19 deaths, nine of them from regular health-department reports and one from an ongoing audit of death certificates. The 14-day death average remains 9.29 per day. Kentucky's death toll from Covid-19 is 6,630.

The state's daily Covid-19 report lists the number and source of death reports, but not a list of fatalities by age, sex, county and date of death. That was included in the daily press releases that have been discontinued.

Kentucky hospitals reported 425 Covid-19 patients, 10 more than Tuesday, with 105 of them in intensive care (down 4), and 50 of those (down 1) on a ventilator. 

Two of the state's 10 hospital-readiness regions are using at least 80% of their intensive-care beds: the easternmost region, from Lee to Pike counties, 83%; and Lake Cumberland, 87%. 

Counties with 10 or more new cases reported Wednesday were Jefferson, 127; Fayette, 36; Pulaski, 32; Kenton, 31; Warren, 26; Boone, 22; Daviess, 19; Henderson, 15; Grant, 14; Campbell, Hardin, McCracken and Scott, 13; Lincoln, Madison, Montgomery and Shelby, 11; and Oldham, 10.

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