After nearly a month of having no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Clinton County, a confirmed case was announced by the Clinton County EMS Saturday, and was included in Saturday afternoon’s daily release of statistics by the Lake Cumberland District Health Department.

According to the LCDHD, the case involved a 56 year-old female who is currently self-isolated and was not showing symptoms (asymptomatic) at the time the positive test result was returned.

Clinton County’s last confirmed case of a COVID-19 patient had been released from the LCDHD daily statistics on June 5.

This latest patient brings the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Clinton County to six since statistics about the pandemic cases began being kept by the health department in March.

Of those six cases, five have been released.

In Monday’s release by LCDHD of COVID-19 statistics, the most recent date prior to press deadline this week, it was clear that the case numbers in the 10 county area were following the same trend as the rest of Kentucky of rising sharply.

With 76 total cases in Sunday’s information brief across the district, the area was coming close to reaching the high case mark that had been previously recorded on April 26 when 89 positive cases were reported.

However, some good news was included with the daily LCDHD briefing on Monday, when it was announced that 13 cases had been released from isolation and reclassified as “recovered”.

With the addition of six new cases in Monday’s numbers, the current total as of Monday was 69, with six cases being hospitalized, leaving 63 in self-isolation.

Of those cases, most were from Adair County with 18, Pulaski County with 14 and Taylor County with 10.

Casey County and Russell County reported eight cases each, McCreary and Wayne counties with five each, followed by Clinton County’s single case.

Cumberland and Green counties did not have any current reported cases in Monday’s briefing numbers.

Amy Tomlinson, the spokesperson for LCDHD, noted in a recent email that public complacency was likely to blame for the surge in cases, both in the district as well as across Kentucky.

“Despite your local health departments’ faithful fight to slow the spread of COVID-19 via Case Investigation and Contact Tracing, and the issuing of isolation and quarantine orders, mother nature is winning the battle. Except for the week when we had the outbreak in the nursing home, in terms of new cases and active cases, last week was our worst week since the outbreak began,” she said. “Also, in terms of new cases, this was our state’s worst week since the outbreak began.”

She also noted that if the number of cases continues to rise at the same or a similar rate, the staff within LCDHD would become taxed or even overwhelmed in their efforts to investigate cases, as well as pointing out a concern about potentially surpassing the capacity of health care workers to treat the case numbers.

“If the new cases rate continues to grow as it has over the last two weeks, we are not far from our capacity being overwhelmed – meaning, we will not have enough staff available to investigate every close contact,” Tomlinson explained. “Additionally, we are already starting to see hospital bed capacity become a concern at some locations around our nation. It is foolhardy to think that cannot happen in Kentucky. If this were to happen – once the hospital capacity is overwhelmed or once too many medical staff are off sick with the disease – it will not matter what your health care need is, the hospital will be overwhelmed.

“Now is our window of opportunity to prevent this eventuality. Now. Not a month from now, not a week from now. Now. If the public waits too long to shake off its complacency with the public health guidance, the disease will be so embedded within our communities it will be nearly impossible to slow its further spread,” she said. “Our best chance for slowing the spread is for everyone to wear a mask when out in public, to avoid crowds, to social distance (stay 6-feet from others), to wash their hands with soap and water often and thoroughly, to stay home if they have a fever or are coughing, to increase sanitation, and to avoid touching their faces.”

She also explained the importance of wearing a face covering or mask when out in the public, to slow the spread of the virus.

“Studies are showing that wearing a cloth mask, bandanna or surgical mask can reduce the spread of COVID-19 by up to 85%,” Tomlinson said. “Unless you have a fit-tested N-95 mask, the wearing of the mask does not protect you from catching COVID-19, it helps to prevent you from spreading it. Remember, you can have and be spreading COVID-19 without even knowing it. If most of the public is not wearing a mask, the few that are will not effectively prevent the spread.”