A record-setting January: Lexington reports a new one-month high for COVID-19 cases

Feb. 1—Lexington kicked off the new year with a new record number of COVID-19 infections: 6,155 cases in January.

There were 260 new cases reported Monday from the weekend — 134 from Saturday and 126 from Sunday. There were also eight new hospitalizations reported.

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit Lexington the hardest over the last three months, with more than 61 percent of the city's cases reported in November, December and January. January was also the second-worst month for hospitalizations, as the city reported 331 of them. The only month with a higher count was December with 349.

A surge of infections earlier in the month helped drive a record-setting January. The city's rolling average of new cases neared a record high when it hit 242.4 on Jan. 10. The spike was attributed to holiday gatherings in late December and an outbreak of cases at the Federal Medical Center, a federal prison facility on Leestown Road.

The biggest spike in infections came at the same time some became dismissive of COVID-19 concerns.

"COVID-19 was never going to stop based on an election or any other arbitrary deadline," said Kevin Hall, spokesman for the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department. "The only things that will slow it down are using the tools we've stressed for months."

Those tools include wearing a mask, physical distancing, handwashing and getting vaccinated as the vaccine becomes available, Hall said.

More than 10 percent of Lexington's new cases in January came from University of Kentucky students, according to data from UK. The university had reported 621 COVID-19 cases through Friday. The university started reporting new cases for the spring semester on Jan. 14.

Lexington's new case numbers dropped off week after week following the surge. The city's rolling seven-day average of new cases fell to 170.6 by the end of the month.

Fayette County's incidence rate consequently dropped too. It was 53.1 on Sunday, which was the lowest it had been since Jan. 2. The most recent incidence rate is still more than double the threshold for the "red zone."

Incidence rate is the state Department for Public Health's standard for measuring severity of COVID-19 spread in every Kentucky county. It's calculated by finding the rolling seven-day average of cases per 100,000 residents. The threshold for "critical" spread, the highest level defined by the state, is 25.

Lexington's coronavirus testing options Monday got a bit slimmer due to winter weather. The testing site at Bluegrass Community and Technical College was closed Monday morning. The site runs an average of about 125 tests per day, according to Lexington Emergency Management. The test site was scheduled to reopen Tuesday at 9 a.m.

Information on other test site locations was available at bereadylexington.com.

Lexington has reported 29,549 COVID-19 cases since the virus first reached the city on March 8. There have been 1,621 hospitalizations and 195 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in Lexington.

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