The COVID-19 disease moved across Albany and Clinton County, as it has across the rest of our nation, with a vengeance last week, prompting the evacuation of a long-term care facility here, the return of at-home instruction for school students, at least through the end of November, and an announcement that both local government office facilities will be closed to walk-in traffic.

As the surge deepened here and elsewhere, current active case numbers in Clinton County reached a never-before seen level, when on Saturday of last week, the Lake Cumberland District Health Department reported in its daily Public Information Brief that there were 100 active cases here.

That number followed a two-day deluge of new cases reported by the agency, with 29 new cases being added to the local total on Friday, followed by 18 new cases on Saturday, for a two-day total of 47 new cases.

After a mass infection of patients and staff at the Clinton County Care and Rehabilitation Center in Albany, patients were moved to health care facilities and other area long term facilities late last week.

As of Monday of this week, the Kentucky Cabinet of Health and Family Services was reporting that there were 44 COVID-19 active cases currently within the facility involving patients who were living there and an additional 17 cases involving staff.

During the past week, the LCDHD reported 82 new active cases of COVID-19 involving Clinton County patients, with only 23 patients being reported as having been released and moved to the “recovered” category, meaning that the county experienced 59 more new cases during the week than were released.

Two additional deaths of Clinton County residents related to the COVID-19 disease were also reported in the last week, both of those being reported by LCDHD in the Public Information Brief that involved Monday’s case numbers.

One of those deaths involved an 83 year-old female who had been hospitalized and the second involved an 86 year-old male who had been a long-term care resident.

On Monday, Clinton County also had the highest number of COVID-19 cases in regards to the 10 county LCDHD region Seven-Day Incidence rate per 100,000.

Clinton County’s rating in that category was 114.64 cases. Other ratings with the 10 county LCDHD region were: Cumberland (69.12), Adair (66.96), Green (92.71), Taylor (75.95), Casey (48.62), Russell (69.34), Pulaski (51.23) and Wayne (75.18)

As of Tuesday morning, Clinton County had been listed as being a “red-critical” county for 46 straight days.

Nine of the 10 counties in the Lake Cumberland region were in the “red-critical” zone, with only McCreary being one step below, in the orange or “Community Spread” zone.

Early this week, state health officials were reporting that the COVID-19 cases were spiking in numbers across the entire state, with at least 103 of Kentucky’s 120 counties being listed in the “red-critical” Incidence Rate zone.

In addition to Clinton County’s current COVID-19 cases, other counties in the LCDHD region’s case counts, and the number of hospitalized patients in parentheses, were: Adair 97 (8), Casey 49 (1), Cumberland 35 (6), Green 59 (2), McCreary 35 (2), Pulaski 207 (13), Russell 86 (6), Taylor 140 (1), Wayne 107 (3).

In its Public Information Brief issued Monday from the LCDHD, spokesperson Amy Tomlinson pointed out that the effort to slow the spread of this disease should be stepped up by residents in the area.

“It is within our power to impact the spread of COVID-19. Businesses and schools should carefully follow the COVID-19 guidance,” she said. “Too often we hear justification as to why the guidance shouldn’t apply to their situations. Also, we, as citizens, need to step-up compliance with masking and social distancing. Please, let’s all do our part in slowing the spread of COVID-19 by wearing our face coverings, avoiding crowds (especially in confined spaces), social distancing when around others, increasing our hand hygiene, increasing our general sanitation, and by avoiding the touching of our faces.”