Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear reported 530 new cases of COVID-19 in the state Monday, which he says continues to show that reported cases are on the decline.
That brings the overall total in the Commonwealth up to 397,526 since the pandemic began—the positivity rate dropped once again, now at 6.6 percent. The governor says the trends are looking better than they have in a long time, and while distributed vaccines may be having some impact on the numbers, he thinks the bulk of the credit for the declining numbers goes to Kentuckians doing what needs to be done.
The number of deaths reported Monday was also lower than it has been recently at 13, putting the death toll at 4,460. He says they will watch the numbers to see if the low cases are the result of a lack of testing due to weather issue, but this was certainly an overall good report.
Nearly 600,000 people have been fully vaccinated in Kentucky and 4.4 million coronavirus tests have been administered. March 1 will signal the start of the vaccination process in phase 1C, starting with individuals ages 60 and up who have underlying health conditions. Public Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack says they hope start getting even faster at rolling out vaccines to those who want them.
The Tennessee Department of Health is reporting 952 cases there, along with 20 new deaths—the positivity rate in the Volunteer State is now at 9.94 percent.