By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today

The number of new COVID-19 cases on Kentucky fell on Sunday, as did deaths, hospitalizations, and the state’s positivity rate.

There were 325 new cases reported to state public health officials, continuing a three-day slide that began on Friday. Although some labs are closed or do not report test results over the weekend, there has now been a 13.99% decrease in weekly cases compared to the prior week, according to the governor’s office. The total number of positive cases in Kentucky since the pandemic began, now stands at 440,955.

(Image from Pan American Health Organization, via Kentucky Today)

There were four new deaths on Sunday, plus nine more from the ongoing audit of death certificates from last fall and winter, a significant drop from the 33 reported on Saturday and 22 on Friday from both sources. This means 6,449 Kentuckians have been lost due to the coronavirus.

Information on the location and ages of the latest victims was not available.

Kentucky’s positivity rate is currently 3.18%, based on a seven-day rolling average of tests performed versus positive cases. The positivity rate has now declined for seven days in a row.

In addition, 381 Kentuckians were hospitalized due to COVID-19 on Sunday. Of them, 99 were in the ICU and 45 were on a ventilator. On Saturday, there were 404 in the hospital, with 102 in the ICU and 45 on a ventilator, so the first two numbers represented a drop from both Friday and Saturday.

There are now 1,723,624 Kentuckians who have received at least one dose of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, which require two; or the one dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. That means Kentucky is now less than 780,000 injections away from reaching the 2.5 million mark, at which time the governor says he will lift most of the capacity and other restrictions on businesses and venues for up to 1,000 people.

A wider view of the pandemic from Johns Hopkins University shows there have been 146,717,947 positive cases of the coronavirus around the world, along with 3,103,454 deaths. In the United States, confirmed cases have now reached 32,071,760 and 672,174 deaths. To see Kentucky’s full daily COVID-19 report, go to kycovid19.ky.gov.