COVID-19 cases continued to show a slight upward trend across Kentucky, as well as the 10 county Lake Cumberland District Health Department area during the past week, although officials are refraining from using the term “spike” when referring to the rising number of cases.

On Monday of this week, the LCDHD reported 31 active cases in its 10 county district, an increase of four cases from a week earlier when 27 cases were reported on Monday of last week, June 8.

The report showing that the district has again reached case numbers in the 30s, compares to just three weeks ago when the district cases had dropped to single digits, with a total of just six cases in the district on May 27.

The case report released this Monday continued to show no active current cases in Clinton County, which has had five cases total since the pandemic began several weeks ago.

Since statistics began being kept and released by the LCDHD, the five Clinton County cases have all been released and listed as recovered, with no deaths.

Monday’s case numbers included five new cases, including three in Taylor County and one each in Adair and Russell County.

Monday’s release also noted one new death to report, although no demographic information at all was released about that patient.

Russell County remained a hot spot for active COVID-19 cases with the new case, bringing its total active case count to nine, eight of which were listed as self-isolated and one hospitalized.

Pulaski County had eight active cases, seven in self-isolation, Taylor County with five, Adair with four and Casey County with three cases. Green County and Wayne County rounded out the LCDHD cases Monday with one each.

In its Monday press release, issued through LCDHD spokesperson Amy Tomlinson, it was noted that through “contact tracing”, it was believed the complacency by the general public, as well as the opening of church services were among the biggest contributing factors in the increase of cases across the district.

“From Sunday to Sunday, we saw positive COVID-19 cases that had gone to church resulting in scores of “close contacts” being quarantined. Some of those “close contacts” are now converting to positive COVID-19 cases; so, it is good that these individuals were already on quarantine. Church continues to be a difficult environment due to several people being in close contact for an extended period,” the press release noted.

“The numbers for Lake Cumberland have been high in the last couple of weeks. This week we are off to a fast start with five new cases. We continue to see widespread complacency when it comes to the public observing the guidance of wearing a mask when out in public, the avoidance of crowds, and social distancing. If the public would do these things and wash their hands with soap and water often and thoroughly, stay home if they have a fever or are coughing, increase sanitation, and avoid touching their faces, a second wave of COVID-19 might be avoided. While we realize we cannot stop the spread of COVID-19 completely, observing this guidance can help our area avoid too many new cases too quickly and thus, overwhelm our medical and public health infrastructure.

“As of Monday’s report, the Lake Cumberland area has experienced 279 Cumulative Confirmed Cases and there have been 12,652 Confirmed COVID-19 cases across 119 Kentucky Counties as of 06/15/20 (this includes 12,647 statewide plus five recently reported cases in Lake Cumberland not in the Governor’s daily report). Regardless of the confirmed case count for any Lake Cumberland county, we believe COVID-19 to be widespread. LCDHD is working to identify and contact all those with whom any positive case may have come into close contact,” Monday’s release concluded.