Gov. Andy Beshear announces record number of deaths for second day in a row

The Whitley County Health Department announced 26 additional COVID–19 cases on Tuesday, bringing the county’s total to 1,440.

There are currently 208 active cases, of which nine are hospitalized.

The Laurel County Health Department announced 50 additional cases of COVID–19 on Tuesday, bringing the county’s total to 2,641.

There are currently 1,058 active cases, of which 32 are hospitalized.

The Knox County Kentucky Health Department announced 19 additional cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, bringing the county’s total to 1,299.

One of the new cases involved children, officials stated.

There are currently 194 active cases in Knox County.

The Bell County Health Department announced 22 additional COVID–19 cases, bringing the county’s total to 1,311.

There are currently 218 active cases, of which six are hospitalized.

Statewide

Gov. Andy Beshear announced 3,601 additional COVID–19 cases in Kentucky on Tuesday, bringing the state’s total to 186,765.

Beshear reported 37 additional deaths, bringing the death toll to 1,980.

Beshear said 1,768 Kentuckians are currently hospitalized, of which 427 are in intensive care.

On Wednesday, Dr. Steven Stack, commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health, updated Kentuckians on projections for hospitalizations in December and January, which vary depending on statewide compliance with recent COVID-19 restrictions.

“Even when researchers at the University of Louisville analyze and look at the data and do their own modeling, they are finding, like others are in other places, that these measures are likely to reduce substantially the number of people in hospitals,” said Dr. Stack. “And remember, some of those people go into the ICU, some of those people are on ventilators – those can have long-term debilitating effects – and of course, some of them die. Every time we choose to disregard the guidance, we will see more people get infected, more strain on our hospitals and more loss.”