With the COVID-19 positivity rate dipping below 8% in Kentucky this past weekend — alongside fewer hospitalizations and ICU/ventilator occupation — Governor Andy Beshear noted Monday the battle against the rampant “Delta” variant is finally trending in the right direction.
In what could’ve been an unsustainable plateau, new cases have been falling since September 10 — down to 1,751 new cases and 50 new deaths on Saturday, 827 new cases and 22 new deaths on Sunday, and 678 new cases with 31 new deaths.
This included a 49-year-old woman from Marshall County.
Still, Beshear said the mix of upcoming holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving — coupled with a vaccine still not ready for ages 5-11 — could bring about spikes, and he advised schools to remain vigilant about masking.
Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack relayed that the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will meet on October 26, and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet on November 2-3. And following those two critical hearings, Stack state authorities across the country have already been advised to “be ready to vaccinate children ages 5-11 years old shortly thereafter,” pending FDA and CDC recommendations.
Should those recommendations come, as they are expected to, Stack said pharmacies and pediatric providers will be ready to begin seeing that age group by early November.
Stack said there are nearly 28,000,000 children nationwide that fall into this demographic, and that Kentucky’s 5-to-11 population is just north of 388,000 — and that vaccinating them wouldn’t just help families, but preschool, elementary and middle school teachers and administrators.
Beshear added there continues to be a unified front between his office and the Kentucky Department of Education in these discussions regarding masking, and that dropping in-school masking mandates probably shouldn’t begin until counties start falling into yellow and green standings with total positivity.
State-wide positive is currently at 7.36% with 1,193 hospitalized, 337 in ICU care and 219 on ventilators.
