Floyd sees huge drop in new cases
By TONY FYFFE
BSN Editor
Thanks to a huge drop in Floyd County, the number of new COVID-19 cases decreased significantly in the Big Sandy region over the last week.
A total of 435 new cases were reported in Lawrence, Johnson, Floyd and Martin counties between Tuesday, Feb. 22, and Monday, Feb. 28, compared to 781 the previous seven-day period.
Floyd County’s numbers during the week slid dramatically, dropping from 781 to 173.
Other new cases numbers were 106 in Lawrence County, 73 in Johnson County and 83 in Martin County.
Active cases on Monday totaled 705, including 44 in Lawrence County, 324 in Johnson County, 254 in Floyd County and 83 in Martin County.
Johnson County reported one COVID-19-related death on Feb. 22, bringing its total to 81.
A total of 27,035 coronavirus cases have been reported in the four counties since March 2020, including 4,569 in Lawrence, 6,487 in Johnson, 12,466 in Floyd and 3,513 in Martin.
The Lawrence County Health Department said Monday that it will be posting an abbreviated COVID-19 report beginning next week.
“We will no longer provide ages, vaccination status, hospitalizations and number of active/recovered cases,” the health department said in a Facebook post. “We will provide the number of new cases, the total cases for the current month, the total number of cases cumulative, any new COVID-related deaths and the total deaths.”
Also on Monday, Gov. Andy Beshear had several announcements concerning COVID-19 as he and Department for Public Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack discussed Friday’s updated guidance and data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and provided information on living as safely as possible with COVID.
The CDC is now using a new “community transmission” model that uses the number of new COVID-19 cases at a county level, percent of hospital capacity devoted to COVID-19 patients and the number of new patients with COVID admitted to the hospital in the past week. This data is produced, mapped and will be updated weekly at the county level on the CDC website.
The Kentucky Department for Public Health (KDPH) will take the data file produced by the CDC and use it to generate a three-tiered, stoplight-colored map that will be posted on kycovid19.ky.gov to make it easy for Kentuckians to quickly see the transmission level for their own county. This will be updated weekly when the CDC shares and posts its new data.
Kentuckians are strongly encouraged to align their personal mitigation measures to the risk level of their county and the matching guidance.
KDPH will also update its K-12 school guidance. Vaccination, disease isolation, targeted mask use and test-to-stay programs are strongly encouraged. Detailed documents to provide further details for schools are currently being revised to align with new CDC guidance.
Beshear also announced that masks are no longer required in state office buildings. But the following agencies will continue to require face coverings: Kentucky Department of Veteran Affairs-run nursing homes; Department of Corrections correctional institutions; Cabinet for Health and Family Services-run psychiatric hospitals and immediate care facilities; agencies providing food, beverage and housekeeping services; and other congregant settings as determined by an agency’s appointing authority.