Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear reported 2,318 new cases of COVID-19 Thursday, saying that cases only continue to grow and will keep doing so unless immediate action is taken by communities.
That is a pandemic record for the state, and brings the overall cases count in the Commonwealth to 115,277, and the positivity rate continues to slowly climb, now up to 6.5 percent. Governor Beshear says these numbers are tough, and simply way too high, and people need to be cutting down their number of contacts.
The governor announced some financial relief from businesses and restaurants impacted by COVID-19 with a twelve month waiver on alcoholic beverage renewal fees.
He says all numbers they track are on the raise, including hospitalizations, patients in the ICU, Kentuckians on a ventilator and the number of children under the age of 18 who are testing positive. Twenty more Kentuckians have now died, including an 81-year old man from Marshall and a 71-year old woman from Muhlenberg, bringing the total up to 1,534.
Christian, Hopkins, Caldwell and Logan Counties remain in the ‘red’ on the state incidence rate map, while Trigg and Todd Counties are labeled as ‘orange’. The governor urged those red counties to continue to following those strict recommendations to get that community spread under control, including making sure people are answering the phone for contact tracers.
The Tennessee Department of Health is reporting 1,969 new cases, along with 31 new deaths. Montgomery County reported 52 new cases, Robertson County gained 16 and Stewart County added 16.