Four counties see surge in new cases

By TONY FYFFE

BSN Editor

The number of COVID-19 cases in Lawrence, Johnson, Floyd and Martin counties rose significantly during the last week.

A total of 381 new cases were reported in the four counties between Tuesday, Nov. 30, and Monday, Dec. 6. During the previous seven-day period, 250 new cases were reported.

New cases included 122 in Lawrence County, 82 in Johnson County, 129 in Floyd County and 48 in Martin County.

The four counties had a total of 471 active cases on Monday, including 99 in Lawrence, 101 in Johnson, 215 in Floyd and 56 in Martin.

Lawrence County reported one COVID-19-related death Monday and also said that one of its previous deaths had been removed as the state determined that it was not related to COVID-19.

A total of 153 coronavirus-related deaths have been reported in Lawrence, Johnson and Martin counties since the pandemic began in March 2020, including 49 in Lawrence, 68 in Johnson and 36 in Martin.

The Floyd County Health Department does not include deaths in its daily COVID-19 updates.

A total of 17,455 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the four counties since the pandemic started, including 2,972 in Lawrence, 4,532 in Johnson, 7,692 in Floyd and 2,259 in Martin.

All four counties were in the red zone on the state’s incidence rate map Monday with rates of 100.7 in Lawrence, 25.1 in Johnson, 61.4 in Floyd and 29.4 in Martin.

Gov. Andy Beshear said Monday that Kentucky is in the “middle of another COVID-19 escalation” but that the state has “more tools to stop this in its tracks than ever before.”

“The great news is, we saw more vaccinations over this last weekend than we have seen in a long time, in every stage of the vaccination process,” Beshear said. “This is how we fight back against this virus.”