Gov. Beshear: Incident rates show Ky. counties some of the ‘fastest spreading’ in the US

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WAVE) - Governor Andy Beshear said Monday that continued spread of the Delta variant has seen the highest number of cases in the past weeks since the pandemic began.

“We are one of the hottest states in the country,” Beshear said. “Every single one of our counties isn’t just red, meaning a high incident rate, it’s some of the fastest spreading counties in the country.”

While the number of new cases decreased over Labor Day weekend compared to previous weeks, Beshear said the numbers may skew lower as less people were tested over the holidays.

“Next week will tell us that if we’d have the same amount of people tested last week or the week before, we would more cases than our highest week ever, which was over 30,000 [new cases],” Beshear said.

On Monday, the governor confirmed 2,426 new cases in the commonwealth and 29 additional deaths due to COVID-19.

The highest incident rate for the past weeks have been in children 10 to 19 years old, Beshear said. The second highest case incident rate is in individuals 20 to 39 years old.

Beshear said 69 percent of Kentucky’s hospitals are facing critical staffing shortages.

“This is our highest number to date, meaning our hospitals are struggling more today than at any other point in the pandemic,” Beshear said.

Hospitals have been working to increase the number of ICU beds available, and the Kentucky National Guard has been activated to assist in area hospitals with the surge in COVID cases.

In vaccine updates, 2,618,081 Kentuckians have received at least their first dose of a COVID vaccine.

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