Pulaski COVID cases climbing
Jul. 8—The most recent COVID-19 map from Kentucky Public Health shows Pulaski in the Red, a significant jump in just one week, since the previous week's map showed Pulaski as Green.
The CDC Community Level scale has three colors: Green for "Low," Yellow for "Medium," and Red for "High."
The entire Lake Cumberland District was in the Green as of June 30. This week, both Pulaski and Cumberland moved to the Red, while Green county was the only one of the district's 10 counties that was still in the Green category.
The news surprised Lake Cumberland District Health Department Executive Director Amy Tomlinson, who admitted she wasn't expecting to see Pulaski jump straight from Green to Red.
"I think the problem is it shouldn't have been in the Green for as long as it has," she said.
The number of COVID cases reported in Pulaski between June 25 and July 1 was 98, Tomlinson said. For the week ending Friday (July 8), there have been 181 cases reported, or nearly double from the week before.
Part of the rise in cases could be the Fourth of July holiday weekend, she said, but a lot of it could be due to summer travel, and some of it could come from the high temperatures seen recently throughout the region, she said.
With the heat index being so high, people were staying inside with each other more, making it the "perfect condition" for the spread of the virus, she said.
The good news is that as of right now the hospital system doesn't seem to be getting overwhelmed with the higher number of cases, she said.
Plus, for most people, cases are not as deadly as they were at the beginning of the pandemic, she said.
However, the current strains of COVID are still highly transmissible, and even though for most people current symptoms are similar to the flu, for vulnerable people it can still be deadly, Tomlinson warned.
"Even if you are vaccinated, you can still catch and spread the disease," she said.
She urged people experiencing symptoms to take measures to protect the elderly or those with compromised immune systems, such as isolating away from others and wearing masks.
She also stated that those who feel more comfortable being masked while in public should do so.
Reports of cases all over the commonwealth have increased slightly, as reported by Governor Andy Beshear in his weekly Team Kentucky update.
Beshear said that while the state saw 10,191 cases announced in the week of June 27 through July 3, the overall hospitalization rate and number if ICU cases were not rising proportionately to the rising number of cases.
LCDHD officials are encouraging residents who are eligible for booster vaccinations to get them.
Adults over the age of 50 have been approved to receive a second booster at least four months after their first booster shot.
It is recommended that everyone ages 18 through 49 receive a first booster. The recommended time to receive those depends on which shot the patient originally received (Moderna, Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson). People in that age group cannot receive a second booster as of this time.
Children ages 5 through 17 who received their initial vaccinations with the Pfizer vaccine have been recommended to receive a booster at least five months after the end of the two-shot series. Boosters with the Moderna vaccine series have not been approved for children of those ages, nor has boosters by either Moderna or Pfizer for children ages 6 months to 4 years old. Either vaccine can be given in a primary series for children as young as 6 months.
