LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — The director of Lexington's E-911 center said this is the most significant outbreak in their office. On Friday, she said four people were out for COVID-19. Monday, that number had risen to ten. The outbreak forced them to relocate their operations.
"Lexington has levels of redundancy built into emergency operations. We're fortunate enough to have a backup operations center that we can activate in instances when we may have to vacate this center," said Jonelle Patton, Lexington's director of E-911.
They can continue taking calls and dispatching emergency crews from the backup facility. That uptick in cases is happening across the state.
"If you look at the first part of July, we were getting about 30 cases a week. If you look at the first part of this month, it was up to around 100," said Kevin Hall, spokesperson for the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department.
Hall said last week, they had 264 lab-confirmed cases. According to the Kentucky Department of Public Health's COVID-19 dashboard, recent cases are primarily in people 17 and under as students return to school. Thankfully, Hall said, hospitalizations remain low in Lexington, with nine new hospital admissions due to COVID-19 this week.
"What you see across the country is that hospitalizations have been trending upward. Still, fortunately, here in Lexington, we're not seeing that, so one, we have a high vaccination rate throughout the city, and that shows that this vaccine is doing what it should be doing, and that is keeping people from getting extremely sick and being hospitalized," Hall said.
While we see an increase, Hall said it's also important to remember that these numbers are nowhere close to what the state saw during those early waves.
"Right now, we want people to just keep in mind that it's time to be cautious, but it is not time to panic. This is not what we were facing a year ago, but we don't want the numbers to get that high again," Hall said.
And, he says, they're optimistic about a new version of the vaccine booster in the next few weeks.
"You've also got people who need a booster, and they're waiting for that mid-September date that the FDA and the CDC are targeting for the release of that new booster. If you're waiting on that, keep waiting. It'll be available soon. If you've never been vaccinated, go ahead and get vaccinated now. Start that process. There's no reason to wait. Getting vaccinated now is going to help you out in the long run," Hall said.
