Clinton County experienced one of the lowest number of new COVID-19 cases being reported over a week long period in several months, indicating that the now year-long pandemic may, in fact, be headed toward a manageable level, or perhaps even a foreseeable end.

According to the Lake Cumberland District Health Department, new cases in Clinton County over the past seven day reporting period were 11 as of Tuesday morning, with the same number of cases, 11, being released as no longer contagious.

With that, Clinton County had 12 current cases as of Tuesday morning, four of which were reported as involving patients who were hospitalized for treatment related to the COVID-19 disease.

Also on the positive side of case reporting in the past week was that there have been no new deaths reported among Clinton County patients over the past week.

To date, there have been 27 patients from Clinton County who have died from the COVID-19 infection, according to the LCDHD.

Clinton County new cases have been steadily declining for the past few months on a somewhat consistent basis, following a similar trend both in Kentucky and across the nation during the same time period.

By comparison, in the first full week of January, the number of new cases reported during a seven day period in Clinton County totaled 144.

Case numbers across the 10 county LCDHD area have also seen a similar decline in totals across the board.

As of Tuesday morning, the LCDHD reported that there were 211 active cases across the area. In neighboring Cumberland County, just one active case was still being counted as of Tuesday morning.

Only one of the 10 counties in the region, Taylor County, remained in the highest level of seven day average incident rate per 100,000 population, while eight counties had moved in to the next lower level of incident spread rate, the Accelerated Spread rate of between 10 and 25 cases per 100,000.

Cumberland County has moved into the next lowest level of spread, the Community Spread level of cases between one and 10 per 100,000.

Clinton County’s seven day incident rate as of Tuesday morning was 15.38. That compares to a rate of 20.97 a week ago.

Clinton County also continued to see more and more of its citizens being able to receive the COVID-19 vaccinations, as The Med Center at Albany continuedsto serve as a Regional Vaccination Site.

The vaccination site is still being held at the Clinton County Welcome Center on North U.S. 127.

The vaccinations being offered here have moved into a portion of the 1c Phase, including Kentucky residents who are 60 and older.

Those persons eligible as part of Phases 1a, 1b and 1c are asked to schedule a vaccine appointment by texting SHOT to 606-387-3646 or by emailing AlbanyVaccine@mchealth.net, or by calling 606-387-3646 and leaving a message.

Med Center Health will bill insurance companies for administration costs and individuals will not incur any costs.

The vaccine will be provided regardless of whether or not a person has insurance.

In regards to total cases, and the numbers among the LCDHD counties in addition to Clinton County’s current 12 positive cases, the current case numbers and the number of hospitalized patients listed in parenthesis are: Adair 23 (1), Casey 9 (1), Cumberland 1 (0), Green 16 (2), McCreary 24 (7), Pulaski 68 (19), Russell 11 (1), Taylor 29 (2), Wayne 18 (2).

To date, Clinton County has experienced a total of 1,406 known cases of COVID-19 since last March, while across the LCDHD district, there have been 20,563 known cases and 363 confirmed deaths directly related to the disease.