Nearly all Kentuckians who got COVID-19 in the last month were not vaccinated

Nearly all people who contracted COVID-19 over the last month in Kentucky were not vaccinated, Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said Thursday, emphasizing the overall effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines.

More specifically, 99.92% of all Kentuckians who’ve tested positive for the virus over the last four weeks were not vaccinated. “That’s functionally 100%,” Dr Stack said alongside Gov. Andy Beshear during a weekly state briefing.

Additionally, 99% of people hospitalized with the virus weren’t vaccinated, and neither were 93.1% of the people who died from the virus over the last month.

“The bottom line is these vaccines work. These vaccines work incredibly well,” Stack said. “If you got vaccinated, you have essentially got a 90%-plus reduction in your risk for death and serious disease and going in the hospital.”

Overall, cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky have been declining for seven consecutive weeks. Nearly 2.2 million people have at least been partially vaccinated in the commonwealth — 49% of the total population — though the rate of new vaccinations continues to slow. According to Kentucky health department data, roughly 108,000 people have been inoculated so far in June, compared with the 271,147 people vaccinated in May.

On Wednesday, there were 210 new confirmed cases of the virus, two additional deaths, and the statewide positivity rate was 1.85%.

Since March of 2020, 464,033 people have contracted coronavirus across the state and 7,196 people have died.