County sees steep rise in COVID-19 cases

EDITOR'S NOTE: The data in this article reflects information available on July 12. Muhlenberg County added an additional 14 cases on July 13 and another 16 cases yesterday, July 14. The county's incidence rate for the previous seven days is 24.3 per 100,000 population, the third highest rate in the state.

COVID-19 is on the rise in Kentucky, with a 2.92% increase in positivity rates since June 26, according to Dr. Steven Stack, who serves as the Commissioner of the Department for Public Health.

The Muhlenberg County Health Department reported 35 new cases and one death between July 5-12, a sharp increase over previous weeks. This comes after 22 new cases were reported from June 28 to July 5.

The health department reported a total of 57 cases in the first 12 days of July, already surpassing the 54 cases reported in June. The county remains in orange, as most other counties in the state have moved to yellow or green.

Data from the state’s COVID-19 tracking dashboard reports a higher number of cases and deaths in the county than reported by the health department. It shows a total of 3,118 cases throughout the pandemic, in comparison to the health department’s 3,108.

The state data is also reflecting one more death than the county, with a total of 68 since the pandemic began in March of 2020.

This increase in cases comes after weeks of good news from Frankfort.

“We had eight consecutive weeks of decreasing cases in Kentucky that was interrupted last week by an increase,” says Dr. Stack.

This spike accompanies the new Delta variant which accounts for half of new national cases according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Director Rochelle Walensky, who heads the CDC, said fully vaccinated people are resistant to the Delta variant.

This hardly quells concerns locally, considering the vaccination rate in Muhlenberg County rests at 40.3%, well under the goal to achieve herd immunity.