Gov. Beshear says state is seeing ‘significant’ decline in COVID-19 cases

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WKYT) - Governor Andy Beshear gave the latest information on COVID-19 in Kentucky.

As the state’s COVID cases decline, the governor wants Kentuckians to remain vigilant. He said it’s not time to let our guards down.

Beshear said we’re seeing a noticeable drop in the week-to-week cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky, however we are still coming off the fifth highest week of cases of the pandemic.

The governor suspects last week’s ice storm may have had an impact on testing, but he said he is confident enough to say cases are rapidly declining.

This comes just as hospital rates came very close to reaching levels we saw during the delta surge, but are now down 11% compared to a week ago.

All of this is encouraging news, but the governor said he is not ready to declare victory yet.

“We are really excited about the trajectory of cases, but remember, this is fifth-highest week of our entire COVID experience,” Gov. Beshear said. “So while we are moving in the right direction, there is still a whole lot of virus out there, so we ask people to continue to be careful. The next month, we may see really serious reductions which would be wonderful, which might get us to a place we would all be really excited about.”

Governor Beshear reported 3,835 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, bringing the state total to 1,206,071 cases. As of Monday, 2,124 people are hospitalized for COVID-19 related reasons, 414 are in the ICU, and 207 are on ventilators.

The governor said the state is seeing a 23.51% positivity rate. Of Monday’s new cases, 718 are in kids 18 or younger.

There were 29 new COVID-19 related deaths reported on Monday. That brings the state total to 13,156.

The governor said he does worry that news of a COVID-19 decrease will lead people to letting their guard down a little too early. He said he’d love to see numbers get back to a pre-delta level, which were as low as 1,000 cases a week. Kentucky never got back to those levels before omicron’s surge.

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