By Melissa Patrick

Kentucky Health News

Kentucky’s COVID-19 metrics continue to drop, almost to last June’s lows, as the state’s pandemic death toll passes 15,000.

The good news about the COVID-19 pandemic is that all metrics to measure the coronavirus in Kentucky continue to drop – including deaths, for the second week in a row. The bad news is that the addition of last week’s COVID-19 deaths means that more than 15,000 Kentuckians have died from the disease.

The state attributed 135 more deaths to COVID-19 last week, an average of 19.3 per day. That’s down from 33.7 per day the week prior and approximately 40 a day recorded in each of the three weeks prior to that. The state’s pandemic death toll is now 15,028.

No new cases or deaths in Clinton County

According to the Kentucky COVID-19 report, there were no new cases reported last week among Clinton County residents during the most recent seven day reporting period.

That same report also noted that during that same period of one week, there had been no new deaths reported among Clinton County residents as a result of the COVID-19 disease.

To date, according to the Kentucky Department for Public Health, there have been 51 deaths among the Clinton County residents that have been attributed to the COVID-19 disease.

As for vaccinations in Clinton County, as of Monday of this week, April 11, 4,783 Clinton County residents, just under 47 percent, had been vaccinated agaisnt COVID-19.

State rates

continues to drop

From last Monday through Sunday, the standard reporting week, the percentage of Kentuckians testing positive for the coronavirus dropped again, to 1.97%. The last time the state saw a positivity rate this low was in June 2021, just before the highly contagious Omicron variant hit. The low was 1.79%.

The state’s weekly report showed 3,948 new cases of the virus during the week ending April 4, an average of 564 per day. The week before, the average was 790 per day.

The state’s seven-day infection rate fell to 4.13 daily cases per 100,000 residents.

The New York Times ranks Kentucky’s infection rate fourth among states, even though the number of cases has declined 46 percent in the last 14 days.

Of the week’s new cases, nearly 24 percent were people 18 and younger.

Hospitals reported 240 patients with COVID-19, less than a third of the 782 reported a month ago; 36 of them were in intensive care and 18 were on mechanical ventilation.

Five of the state’s hospital regions are using at least 80 percent of their intensive-care beds, but very few of their patients have COVID-19. Overall, 53 percent of beds were in use, 77 percent of ICU beds were, and only 22 percent of ventilators were being used

.

Kentucky Health News is an independent news service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Kentucky.