News

Chief Nursing Officer Dr. Hazel Brown today issued a weekly video update from the Public Health Department on trends observed in COVID-19 data over the prior week.

The weekly trends data is being reported by “epidemiological week” which runs from Sunday to the following Saturday and is commonly referred to as an epi week or a CDC week. It is a standardised method of counting weeks to allow for the comparison of data.

Dr. Brown said that for the week of 21 to 27 November there was an average of 108 new COVID-19 cases per day and a weekly total of 754 new cases.

Overall, 55 percent of the cases were female, and 45 percent male.

The ages of positive cases ranged from six weeks to 93 years, with an average age of 32 years.

Dr. Brown said, “Seven cases were under the age of one-year-old. Two hundred and thirty-six cases were under the age of 18 and 20 over the age of 70; most of the cases were in the workforce.”

Of the week’s new positives, Dr. Brown said, 35 percent were fully vaccinated, three percent had one shot, and 62 percent are unvaccinated.
Dr. Brown also reported on the number of hospital admissions related to COVID-19 since 8 September. She stated, “There have been 94 admissions and 79 discharges. Seventy-seven percent of these were admitted for COVID-19 while 23 percent were admitted for other causes while testing positive for COVID-19.”
Fifty-three percent of hospital admissions were female, and 47 percent were male.

The age range for all 2021 admissions is nine months to 93 years with an average age of 57 years.
Sixty-six percent of admissions were unvaccinated and 19 percent were fully vaccinated.

Six percent of admissions had received one dose of COVID-19 vaccine and nine percent were unknown or unrecorded.
Eighty-four percent of admitted patients had one or more comorbidities:

• • • • 32 percent were diabetic
      • 48 percent were hypertensive
      • 16 percent had chronic kidney disease, and;
      • 13 percent had chronic heart disease

Dr. Brown urged residents to continue with personal prevention measures. She said, “While the number of local cases appears to be falling, this is not the time to relax. We must continue to practice all measures to reduce transmission and protect our families and community. Wear a mask, wash your hands, practice physical distancing, get vaccinated if you are eligible and isolate if you are experiencing any symptoms.”

She closed by reminding persons to report their positive lateral flow results using the portal on exploregov.ky.