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Harlan County saw a drop in the number of new Covid-19 cases reported over the last seven days compared to the previous week. 

According to the Harlan County Health Department, Harlan County reported 74 new cases of Covid-19 from July 11 through July 17. This was a drop from the 120 new cases recorded for the week of July 4 through July 10. The total number of Covid-19 cases recorded in Harlan County since the beginning of the pandemic was 9,888 as of Monday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website at www.cdc.gov showed Harlan County at a high community level for COVID-19 on Monday.

According to a news release from Governor Andy Beshear’s office, approximately two-thirds of Kentucky counties are currently at a medium or high community level for Covid-19.

The release states Dr. Steven Stack, Commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health, provided an update noting that hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and ventilator use remain low. However, the virus is still actively spreading across the state.

“Currently, all active variants in Kentucky continue to be Omicron variants,” Dr. Stack said. “BA.5 has become the predominant variant nationwide at about 65 percent of the total Covid sequenced, and Kentucky sees a similar pattern. BA.5 does not appear to cause increased hospitalization or death, but it is causing more reinfections because previous strains confer less immunity to BA.5.”

The release additionally states for the greatest protection against Covid-19, Beshear and Stack encourage the unvaccinated to do so and those who are vaccinated to receive a booster shot if they have not already done so. Of the Kentuckians under 60 who died from Covid-19 last year, 90 percent were unvaccinated, and two-thirds of those over 60 were unvaccinated.

The Kentucky Weekly Covid report located at www.chfs.ky.gov was released on Monday. The report states there were 49 Covid-19-related deaths recorded in the state in the preceding week. As of Monday, there were 587 individuals hospitalized with Covid-19 across the state, with 78 in ICU and 18 on ventilators.

The state’s positivity rate was 17.7 percent on Monday.

The Harlan County Health Department requests that Harlan Countians follow the Kentucky Department of Health’s guidelines for COVID-19:

• Get vaccinated.

• Keep up to date with vaccine boosters.

• Consider targeted mask use following exposure and if at high risk.

• Isolate when sick or testing positive for COVID-19.