Beshear holds final COVID-19 briefing as cases drop in the commonwealth

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WKYT) - It was about this time two years ago we were receiving daily COVID-19 updates with numbers, case counts and trends. That came to an end some time ago in place of a weekly update, but Governor Andy Beshear said Monday’s 4:00 p.m. update to talk exclusively about COVID was also ending.

“Cases, hospitalizations, all declining. Every metric is moving in the right direction,” Gov. Beshear said.

The governor said the positivity rate is below five percent, which is lower than where it was when it stopped going down with delta. A map of Kentucky shows most of the counties in the yellow or green. Laurel County remains in the red but even there, improvements are being seen.

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“We have continued to see a downward trend the last three to four weeks. Last week we had 80. An average of 11.4 a day,” said Mark Hensley with the Laurel County Health Department.

“The case rates are coming down. I think this summer is going to be a good summer. We will see low case rates and get back to whatever normal is now. I think is a new normal,” family physician Dr. Jeff Foxx said.

Health leaders said the virus will stay with us and anticipates the need for additional booster shots and possibly even a yearly COVID-19 shot, similar to a flu shot.

“A lot of people, get your flu shot, catch the flu and don’t feel well for a week then you go on. But there are some who die from this. I think that’s going to be COVID,” Dr. Foxx said.

Dr. Foxx said he believes COVID-19 will always be with us and we may see a spike of cases next fall and winter such as the seasonal flu, but with testing, treatment, vaccines, and other tools the thing now is to simply manage it.

A number of counties in our region remain in the red, especially in southern Kentucky, but health leaders said even those case counts have improved in the last few weeks.

During the week ending March 13, there were 9,532 newly reported cases of COVID-19 and the seven-day test positivity rate was 4.17%. As of Monday, there are 470 Kentuckians hospitalized, 95 in the ICU, and 56 on ventilators.

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